Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, FY25 Budget Work Session, Monday, March 4, 2024

Date: Monday, March 4, 2024
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 4h 46m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7615
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7615

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-19. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:07:10] Well, good evening, Supervisors. Good evening, Staff. Good evening, Loudon. I'd like to call to order the March 4th, 2024 Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session. Board members, I want to stress the importance of these budget work sessions as the time for us to offer changes.

[00:07:29] I've lost my place. Additions and deletions to the budget. Board members should try to offer all desired amendments and ask any questions you have through the work sessions. Please, well, I'm going to ask, it says please only offer motions.

[00:07:47] I'm going to change this. Please only support motions if you wish to support the tax rate in the end. In other words, and actually that's not really an issue for this board very much. It really is not for this board. I'm going to say it anyway. Don't vote yes on motions if you're not willing to vote yes to support the tax rate that those motions actually put on the tax rate.

[00:08:14] In addition, if you'd like to offer motions on items that do not appear in the proposed budget, please work with staff prior to the work session to ensure your motion is accurate and accomplishes your intended results. When we get to our final vote on April 2nd, staff will not be able to make large changes to the budget during that meeting, and the vote in the budget could be delayed if there are any substantive changes that were not discussed and voted upon during work sessions. Supervisors and everybody else, will you please First, draw me on the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:08:47] Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, invisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:09:08] Okay, Supervisors, this will be, I think, our longest night that we have during the budget session. We have a lot of departments coming before us tonight, and then it'll ease up a little bit. So I know it's a long night. I know it's going to be tough.

[00:09:24] Everyone kind of just settle in and let's do the best to get in through this. Also, I did change this afternoon the order that I'm going to call the departments up. And I'll get to that order in just a second.

[00:09:40] But I did completely change the order on which I would have called the departments up. Before I get to that order, I'm going to ask Ms. Berg to give us a staff update and review the work sessions process. She's also gonna go over the Tote board.

[00:09:56] But members, if there are any questions for staff in the packet process, it's also gonna be talked about at this time. So after I do that, after Ms. Burke gives that update, I'm going to, one, tell you the order for tonight, and two, I'm gonna make the packet motion because that's the motion we make just to start the process.

[00:10:17] I know that there are, there is at least one motion the day is that's not the packet motion to start with and and anyone that wants to make an amendment to that to that to the packet motion you can make a friendly maybe it'll be accepted maybe it won't or you can make an amendment to the motion but we're gonna start off with the packet motion just because it's logical to do it that way but first I will go to miss Burke hello how are you good evening you for everything and thank you for all the all the updates that you've given staff over the past weeks sure we are happy to be here so I I will just review the items that are in the packet

[00:10:55] that came out on Friday and then go into item two and then review a couple budget updates from staff. So you'll have item two in your packet, which includes information about the Tote Board, which is on the screen in front of you.

[00:11:10] This is the mechanism that staff will use to track all straw votes that the board makes throughout the work sessions should a motion pass, the net LTF impact will be tracked as well. You will see the changes made summarized in lines 22 and 23 on the spreadsheet above, and then should motions impact the overall real property tax rate, that will be tracked accordingly as well. You can keep track of that with the in the square that is outlined in a in a in red in addition to the tote board you also have

[00:11:50] in your item motions sample motions that you could offer to remove items from the budget and to add items from the budget as you know everything in the proposed budget is funded according to the board's budget guidance that you provided the county administrator last December and so to remove to affect any items noted in the proposed budget those would be motions to remove those resource requests if you need assistance splitting resource requests staff is prepared to do that we

[00:12:23] will have that math worked out as you make your motion and we will ask for clarifications if we need be, but we will work on the fiscal impact and the number of positions impacted, so we would recommend to you just moving the removal or addition of a specific resource request or specific positions of that resource request and the associated department, and we will take care of the rest. As the chair noted, we will use these straw votes, and as part of wrap-up, you will be asked to make a motion that will direct staff to work on the appropriations resolution based on all

[00:13:03] the draw votes that you take during your work sessions. And so this will be the basis of the appropriations resolution that you'll be considering on April 2nd. And then again, as Chair Randall stated, there's a draft motion in the item for your consideration this evening. Prior to that, I did want to just describe the items that are included in your packet for this evening.

[00:13:30] County budget questions, we've responded to all questions from board members that were posed by February 23rd, and we will have subsequent packets issued the day before your next work session, so the next packet will go out on Wednesday.

[00:13:46] Also included in your packet were responses from Loudoun County Public Schools. I believe at this point they have responded to all operating budget questions that have been posed, but we will continue to record any questions that come in this evening and communicate those to LCPS for further response.

[00:14:08] In addition to the response packets, you do have two replacement pages in the packet, one replacement page to correct a typo from the commonwealth's attorney fourth priority the page in the original budget referred to the the request at two different times being for two positions or three positions it is for three positions and a replacement page for the general district court that replaces the performance measure data that was included

[00:14:39] it does not affect the requests at all and then i will just close by saying that the fy25 proposed budget is loaded in i legislate different this year is that we have segregated all information about resource requests behind one tab entitled resource requests so it is the second tab in your hard copy volume and then of course the it's labeled accordingly in i legislate that is where all information about resource requests can be found and finally for because of the agenda for

[00:15:16] this evening and subsequent work sessions we have asked department heads to be limited in their opening comments so the board can facilitate their discussion and questions right away and so hopefully that will be helpful to the board as we make our way through the next two weeks happy to answer any questions at this point supervisors do you have any questions i think everyone's been through this before. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn't ask this in the last four years, and I don't know why I just thought about it this year, but let me be clear

[00:15:49] here. So a half-penny increase reduces revenue by 7.4 million, correct? A half-penny decrease. A half-penny decrease. A half-penny decrease reduces county revenue by 7.4 million dollars. That's correct. Okay, but it really, to be more precise and a little bit more granular, it really reduces or actually it increases the school deficit from 10 million that it is right now it adds an additional 60 percent to the school deficit of that 7.4 and if it's 40 percent less for county budget we still have to do the 60 40 split to the half penny we saved don't we that is

[00:16:27] not how the board has chosen to use the tote board for this purpose a dollar is a dollar on the tote board and so the proposed budget is on the table as shown so any change that you wish to make to affect the school transfer we would recommend a separate motion on the tote board i think your version if we were to reduce county expenditures by 40 cents you would expect an equal or a similar motion to reduce school transfer by 60 cents that is not the way the board has used the tote board

[00:17:03] in the past so that is not accurate to say the 60 40 split will be taken into account to restate what i think i just heard you say is if we do a half penny reduction in in the tax rate then we are getting 7.4 million less in revenue and then we can choose how to spend that the the how to apportion that 7.4 million reduced revenue we can absorb it all in county things correct and if you A school budget or a piece of each?

[00:17:32] Yes, and staff would encourage you, if you are going to have a motion to reduce the rate, we would need to know where those expenditures would be removed from. Thank you. Okay, supervisors, this is the order I'm going to call tonight.

[00:17:52] I'm first going to call the judges, Judge Welch, Judge Brooks, call the Clark and Tina Jones, or in person. I'm going to then call the Combined Fire and Rescue System. I know System Chief Keith Johnson is in the room, and I don't know.

[00:18:10] I think maybe Chief Williams is here as well. I'm then going to call the Clerk of the Court, Gary Clemons, come with Attorney Bob Anderson, and Sheriff Mike Chapman. I'm actually trying to keep all the constitutional offers together. It didn't really make sense for me to have them bouncing around, so I put them all together.

[00:18:28] And then I'm going to go to Animal Services. I know, I'm sorry, Nina, I know you guys were first before, and now you're not first anymore. And then to community corrections, juvenile court, library service, and parks and rec. That would be in the order in which offices are called up.

[00:18:45] So the first thing I'm going to do is go back to my item and make the first motion. All right. All right. I'm with the Board of Supervisors, begin budget deliberations at the real property tax rate of 0.

[00:19:09] 875 for tax year 2024, the personal property tax rate of $4. 15 for tax rate 2024, the personal property tax rate of $4. 10 for tax rate 2025, and the appropriations proposed in the county administrator's FY 2025 proposed budget.

[00:19:25] All right. Motion's been made and seconded. So, first of all, I'm kind of, I know there's another motion on the dais, and we can discuss that motion, and depending on the discussion, I may or may not, we'll see how I go, where that goes.

[00:19:41] Not because I don't think some of these ideas are good ideas, but because I'm a bit of a stickler about advertising a proposed budget for months. And then on the day of the first budget meeting, coming up and changing that advertised rate.

[00:19:57] Now, when that motion is made, Mr. Crony can explain that there's not really a lot of changes that are being made except for one. So it doesn't change a lot of what was advertised. But I'm really careful about not doing a lot of different things on the list than what we advertised.

[00:20:18] There's also lots of discussions of, you know, if her motion were to pass, how we would use that money. And I guess that's a discussion for later, to be honest, because there's about nine supervisors and nine different ideas of how that would be, about how that would be used. I want to say that I really do appreciate Mr. Hemstreet and Megan and all the other staff working on this budget this year and getting so much already in the budget already.

[00:20:46] As was said by Ms. Burke, the motion would be to really take things out more than anything else, which hasn't really happened before, not to this degree. And so it is a, in some ways, it's a much easier budget process because someone is already in the budget, unless we start pulling things out, which that's liable to happen.

[00:21:08] So I think that's all for now. Anybody else want to speak on this motion? Before I go to Mr. Crony, which I know will have an alternate motion, Mr. Crony. You know, Mr. Crony, Mr. Letourneau, before I even put us through the thrash, if she makes a friendly, would you accept a friendly?

[00:21:26] No. Okay. So, yeah, and I wasn't sure where I was on that either. So would you like to make an alternate motion? So I'll do the full motion or just my? Right, you have to say the full motion with your changes in the motion.

[00:21:44] Okay, okay. I move that the Board of Supervisors begin budget deliberations at the real property tax rate of .875 for tax year 2024, The personal property tax rate of 415 for tax year 24 and the personal property tax rate of 415 for tax rate tax year 2025 and the appropriations proposed in the county administrators FY 2025 proposed budget.

[00:22:16] Okay, that motion was made and seconded by Ms. Bricksman. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm so, oh gosh, I'm so sorry. Mr. Crony, Supervisor LeCran, would you please explain what you're trying to do? Okay. So this is for tax year 2025, which begins January 1st.

[00:22:31] So we do have time, according to the Commissioner of the Revenue. Data centers have had a significant environmental and community impact in Loudoun County, and I do not support lowering taxes on data center computer equipment by going to 410, which reduces our revenue by approximately $4.1 million.

[00:22:54] 194, which is about the tangible personal property tax, has passed both houses of the General Assembly unanimously, and it would give local governments the ability to tax computer equipment and data centers and vehicles at separate rates.

[00:23:11] Currently, classes of property cannot exceed the locality's general rate, which for 2023 was $4.15 per $100 of assessed value. Once this bill is signed, I look forward to working with my colleagues to lower the tax rate for vehicles to 410 for tax year 2025, which can be done after July.

[00:23:32] So it can be done later in the summer or in the fall. Thank you. Well, pass both houses. What if the bill's not signed? Well, we can look at... I want her to say this in her time so she can...

[00:23:48] Yeah, my time. We can look at the personal property tax relief, which is coming to the board tomorrow. We can work with the Commissioner of the Revenue to look at some relief for the vehicles. And again, we have time on this. I just don't want to lower the personal property tax rate for data center computer equipment.

[00:24:09] We did that last time. We went from 420 to 415. I don't think we should do it again. Thank you. Mr. Crony, would you like to have Mr. Wirtz come down to the table if he's in the room? Is he in the room? I don't know if he is. He's coming tomorrow. Mr. Wirtz is like, I'm not having any parts of this right now.

[00:24:27] Okay, I thought you had asked him to come to the room. I did, but he said he was coming tomorrow. Okay. My bad. Are you finished? Yes. Okay, discussion on Mr. Crony's motion that was seconded by Ms. Bricksman, Mr. Turner.

[00:24:45] Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, first of all, the bill that's pending, right now we can separate the computer tax from the car tax. We can do that right now. We simply have to pass a county ordinance. The bills that are pending right now, one bill, I don't know which is which, but one bill removes the sunset clause that currently exists, the sunset, the existing law, and the other bill extends the sunset clause.

[00:25:07] But right now we can create a separate computer and car tax. I fully support this, and the reason I do is because we have continually coupled personal property tax. So what that means is, and I will try not to use negative language, we are trying to achieve a 60% ratio of, we're pushing for a 60% real property tax portion ratio of our total county revenue.

[00:25:35] This is my humble opinion. We will never again see a 60% ratio of real property tax in Loudoun County. We are unlike any other county in the United States. We have a massive data-centered industry, which will never allow us to get close to a 60% ratio ever again.

[00:25:55] So we are arbitrarily lowering this personal property tax, which is artificially coupled to a car tax. the car tax and the computer tax are together, in order to enable us to get closer to that 60% threshold. So first, I want to stop trying to strive for the 60% threshold and re-look at the paradigm of what our percentage, our ratio should be in this county, and I don't believe it should be 60%, set a baseline operating budget each year, add in X percent for inflation and expense growth and county growth and make that our baseline, and anything above that goes to capital improvement

[00:26:32] programs, one-time expenses, and programs that we can fund with one-time dollars. This motion will allow us to do that. I don't like giving data centers which have more money than God, and I like the data center community. They're sharp, good people. They're just business people doing their job, but I really am uncomfortable giving them a tax break every year to try and get closer to this fictional, this mythical 60% real estate threshold.

[00:26:58] So I support this. I think we should immediately leave the rate flat at 415 and then immediately work on an ordinance in Loudoun County to decouple car taxes from computer taxes so we have two separate taxes. Thank you. I think I should take a point of order just because I think that language right now is really important.

[00:27:16] and Mr. Crony said something that really wasn't completely correct. Last year, we didn't lower data center taxes. Last year, we lowered personal property taxes. And yes, they are coupled together, and yes, I understand what you're trying to do this year.

[00:27:35] But it's really important that we do not say that last year we lowered taxes on data centers because there was no such thing as data center tax last year. That's not correct language for last year. And I think that's important to be said so it doesn't get reported out like that.

[00:27:51] So, all right. Ms. Umstead. - Thank you, Madam Chair. I cannot support this motion at this time. I appreciate Supervisor Tacroni's optimistic approach that envisions us passing an ordinance, but we haven't done so yet.

[00:28:14] I would like to see us lower the personal property tax for vehicles And I would like that to be part of this budget. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau.

[00:28:31] Okay. So let's ask staff. If the board has the goal of eventually decoupling and establishing a separate rate for vehicles versus data centers, what's the best way to go about achieving that goal? So.

[00:28:50] Go ahead, Tim. Come on, Tim. I don't know what happened with that voice. You're in my time, guys. I got you. All right. So within your time. I would wait until it's law. So right now it's not law. There is a discrepancy. So while a version of the bill has passed through both chambers, the bills are not the same. And so they're in conference right now to clarify if the sunset is just being extended or if the sunset is going to be removed.

[00:29:18] Keep in mind that previous recommendations that we have made to the board is to be careful about setting a different car tax if there's a sunset attached to it, because if you lower the rate on vehicles and then the sunset expires, you're going to have to return that rate to the general rate, or you're going to have to somehow increase taxes somewhere else.

[00:29:41] And so our recommendation would be to, or cut expenditures, however you want to do it, to make up that difference. So first thing, wait until it's law, and then we can come back and make some recommendations to the board. Yeah, so that's why I'm not going to support the motion. I think it's premature.

[00:29:58] And I do think, you know, as Supervisor Turner said, we could, there already, these provisions already existed to allow us to decouple these, but they had a sunset. And we didn't want to end up in the position that Mr. Hemstreet just described. If the version of this passes that all it does is bump the sunset, which is what 194 does, all it does is extend that sunset two years, then we're back in that situation.

[00:30:20] And that's why when we did choose to try to lower the vehicle personal property rate, we did so by the percentage instead of actually changing the rate. So I'm a little frustrated because we've had multiple discussions about affirming the rates, and we have another one tomorrow.

[00:30:37] but you know i think that process is the way to go and not do it in the middle of the budget or the beginning of the budget um we should wait and see what happens with the legislation so we know what the playing field is and if we can we should do it by ordinance and actually separate the two i don't disagree with the goal of keeping the data center rate at 415 or a higher rate and trying to use i think i think in my case i would try to use the proceeds to lower the vehicle rate or find other savings. So I think we're all kind of saying the same thing, but we're talking about how to get it differently. And I think doing it like this is not the right way to

[00:31:16] try to do this. And it's just going to sort of confuse us down the road. We ought to just see what happens and then pursue an ordinance or pursue other policy changes, not just kind of do it willy-nilly like this. Mr. Kirster. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a wrestling tournament this weekend, so I'm a little hoarse yelling at the kids. All good, though. Let me make sure I understand this real quickly. We were able to separate them last term, or last year, I should say. And what was it, 10 cents or something like that? Can you explain why we were able to do that

[00:31:52] and the mechanism allowing you to do that? We did a percentage. You want me to answer that, Chair? Can I ask through the chair to Mr. Hemstreet? Yes, please, Mr. Hemstreet. So the General Assembly did pass legislation that allows for a separate vehicle category however it sunsets at the end of this year and so the board made a decision as opposed to lowering the or setting aside the vehicles as a separate category and then lowering or addressing the separate tax on vehicles to use the ratio that was offered by the commission of revenue based off of of hardship

[00:32:30] right we also as staff recommended that you not do that because of the sunset provision correct Meaning that once the sunset elapses, you're either short revenue, and you have to address that by making it up elsewhere, or you have to address that by, you know.

[00:32:47] Right. So that provision is no longer available this year? Has it sunset, or will it sunset this year? So this year, it is set to sunset. However, as Supervisor DiCroni has referred to there, and I think Supervisor Letourneau as well, there are two competing bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, that are in conference right now.

[00:33:03] One which would extend the sunset by a couple of years, and the other one that removes the sunset altogether. So that has not been concluded as of yet. If the conferees are able to agree on a version of the bill and both houses approve it, it would then proceed to the governor to be either signed into law or vetoed or however he wants to dispose of it.

[00:33:26] And it would be in effect for tax year 25. And if that is, I don't know when it's scheduled to go before the governor, but if that is signed somewhere before we're completed this budget process, would it be too late to come back and revisit this motion? So my recommendation is to not consider that as part of this year's budget process in terms of the vehicle tax.

[00:33:47] Now, if you want to maintain your overall personal property tax at $415, then I think you should do that if that's something you want to do or make the decision as to whether to maintain it or lower it. Whether or not vehicles can be a separate category is something that my recommendation would be to address that when you address personal property tax rates for tax year 25, which is later this calendar year.

[00:34:12] I appreciate it. So I've got 20 seconds left. I'm just going to say we have regularly raised the tax rate on real property. We are right now making a recommendation of three and a half cents above the equalized, and that's just the residential rate. I'm going to support this motion now.

[00:34:28] I understand a lot of my colleagues and why they may not, but I think it's really important that we try where we can to give a tax break to our residents. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do agree with staff on the concern about having more than 50% of our revenue pie coming from personal property tax.

[00:34:55] The number I have in here, staff, if we keep it at 415 for the second half of the tax year, that that will put an extra 5.65 in our coffers. I think there may be another way to go about this to make sure that we're balanced and we're not going over the percentages that we want.

[00:35:16] And I think the way to do that is to do the percentage valuation on the card. Mr. Letourneau? At least for the second half. Ms. LaTona, would you guys like to go to the back with this conversation? Okay. Let's start our time again. I would like to see us pass this motion, and I might offer friendly depending on what staff says.

[00:35:36] I would like to see us do a percentage valuation on the cars that will make up for the $5.65 million in the second half of the year. So my question to staff is, would it be appropriate to have a friendly on this motion that requests that the board of supervisors request the commissioner of the revenue to come back and report to us what percentage of valuation on vehicles do we need to get at to make up the 5.

[00:36:03] 65 million? In other words, then we would be balanced, the ratios would be the same, and people get a break on their car tax. I don't know that I understand you. Mr. Hempstree and then if you can explain to me what she just said What you just said my interpretation of vice-chair brisman's statement is that She would like the board to request that the Commissioner revenue make a finding that a hardship on valuation still exists and to recommend a ratio that values

[00:36:40] Vehicles at less than a hundred percent of value. I think the board can make that request of the Commission of the revenue and then he can dispose of it as he pleases. Now, statutorily, he needs to make a finding that the valuation of vehicles warrants a value less than 100% in terms of value.

[00:37:05] At this point, if the request is for fiscal 2025, that would be a year from now because he's already made his valuations for tax year 24. So if we're talking about the FY25 budget, I don't believe that that would be, I don't think it's appropriate to do that at this time because that issue for him would be in the fall of 2024 for tax year 25.

[00:37:31] Okay, but the 410, the proposed 410 is for the first half of tax year 25, yes? So the 410 would apply to the tax year of all of 2025. So we get into the second half of the fiscal year, because the fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30th.

[00:37:50] So the second half of the fiscal year, but for the entirety of tax year, 25. Gotcha. Okay, thank you. I'm out of time. Thank you. So I'm really torn because I understand what Mr. Crony and Mr. Turner and others are trying to do.

[00:38:06] And to a large degree, I understand what and I understand why. I don't like making decisions based on whether or not the governor may sign something, especially, I got to tell you, especially for this General Assembly session, which has been all over the map, and there's been a lot of willing and dealing and trading, and if I give you this, you give me that.

[00:38:27] But I've learned this year more than ever that the General Assembly is a very different body than our board, and they do things very different. And so I'm not really comfortable saying, well, do this because we believe the governor is going to do something. Now, having said that, this passes.

[00:38:45] I know exactly what I want to do with that extra money. And that's why I'm torn, because I've said all along that I want to make a motion and do another half penny for the housing fund. And I still do that. And I know it's not there right now. And that would give me some options. But it's hard for me to vote on a motion of, I hope it happens.

[00:39:10] And I don't know that I think that's very fiscally responsible to vote on a motion of, gosh, I hope that happens. As much as I agree with Mr. Kirshner on lowering taxes, I think if you're going to make these decisions, you have to make these decisions based on what's in our control and not what is in the control of the General Assembly or the governor.

[00:39:33] What is in our control is to do an ordinance, and I am all for that. Let's do that ordinance, and let's make that happen through an ordinance that we have put forward and we control, and we can decouple the data center tax from other forms of personal property tax in an ordinance.

[00:39:52] I think that's the most appropriate way. Oh, Mr. Turner. Mr. Turner, thank you. You guys can take your little conversation to the back if you need to, all of you all, Because really, I can't do that. I think that's the more appropriate way to do that.

[00:40:08] So, you know, Mr. Crony, I really appreciate what you're trying to do and why you're trying to do it. And I don't completely disagree with your premise. I just think the vehicle for it right now is not the right vehicle. I think the more correct vehicle is to either wait to 2045 or do an ordinance ourselves.

[00:40:29] Even though I, so for me, it's not the issue. It's the how you're trying to do it that does not work for me at this moment. So I'm going to be a no on this. Would you like a closing? Okay.

[00:40:45] Okay. So I think we should hold it at 415. Commissioner of the Revenue is coming tomorrow to discuss the personal property tax relief for tax year 24. That is where we can make a change to the vehicles.

[00:41:06] are when he comes to us in the in the fall he can recommend personal property tax relief that would get us down to the level of 410 for the vehicles using the 5.65 that we've um kept um in in the um in that by not lowering the tax rate so there is another solution we don't have to necessarily wait to see if the governor signs the bill there's another way to do it and i think we should keep

[00:41:44] it at 410 415 and not lower it to 410 because like i said before i think i don't support lowering the tax rate for data center computer equipment um it's 4.1 million is what it is and i think we need that revenue um you know we can debate up here what it can be used for i i support it for land acquisition but i know there are other uses that other people have ideas for but i i don't think we should be lowering it and i do think there's other ideas if the governor does not sign

[00:42:21] the bill although um and remember this is for january 1st of 2025 so we do have time we 2024 is done this is for january 1st of 2025 so i hope my colleagues will support keeping it at 415.

[00:42:37] Bob Wurtz is coming tomorrow to discuss his resolution for personal property tax relief for tax year 24 he's coming tomorrow to the board and we can talk about what do we do for tax year 25 to get the tax the vehicle tax rate down to 410 but I do not believe we should be lowering our personal property tax rate especially on data center computer equipment can I ask you something do you think tomorrow when Bob Wurtz Mr. Wurtz comes he's going to say because I'm you told me you all have had conversations.

[00:43:10] He's going to say something different or something that we don't know right now? Because we could table this until we hear from him. I mean, do you think there's something he's going to glean for us that we don't know right now? No, I think he can offer a suggestion on how to get to the 410 with personal property tax relief, which is the item that we're talking about tomorrow.

[00:43:36] So there is... We are not aware of a way to use personal property tax relief to generate additional revenue. So the personal property tax relief is a distribution of the state funding that was granted many years ago to localities to address a percentage of your personal property taxes that are paid by individuals. And so that what you're setting tomorrow is taking that allocation from

[00:44:08] the state and then allocating it back to folks who pay vehicle tax as a percentage or a reduction to their tax bill. So that is a finite amount of money that comes from the Commonwealth. Okay. All right. Thank you. I'm sorry. Did you have any, like, take 20 more seconds or are you good? Does anything else? I just, I mean, I think he's coming tomorrow, so he'll explain it a little better but um i believe we should keep it at the 415 and then again this is for january 1st of 2025

[00:44:43] okay so we do have time so the motion was made by mr crony seconded by miss brixman right my miss brixman yes yes all right all in favor please say aye aye opposed um and we have one abstaining we have one abstain i think that was six two one that's what i heard with mr mr turner and Mr. Crony voting for the motion and Ms. Brixman obtaining.

[00:45:11] Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize. So 5-2-1, 5-3-1 is 5-3-5-3-1, okay? So that motion will not pass. Thank you, though. Madam Chair, point of order, I think it should be 3-5, right?

[00:45:31] Yeah, 3-5-1. All right, okay, let's get our first department up here and we are happy, always happy, to welcome our judges to the room. Do you need to vote on the main motion? Oh, we haven't voted.

[00:45:46] I'm sorry. Come on anyway. Come on anyway. And we're going to vote on the main motion, which is the motion I put forward. Mr. Turner, we're going to vote on the main motion. It's the main motion for the entire budget. Yeah.

[00:46:02] All right. Discussion on the main motion, because only Mr. Crony just talked to the main motion. Mr. Kirsten, you have a discussion on the main motion? Yeah, briefly, Madam Chair. I wasn't sure if you wanted it before or before Ms. Lucroni's discussion, but I'm going to support this.

[00:46:21] Obviously, I'm very disappointed that we continue on this board to continue to the tax rate because we've got to kick off and get started somewhere. It doesn't mean I'm going to support the final budget and its process. I voted against the last motion. I just wanted to clarify within this motion simply because I realized that we could not, we didn't know when this decoupling was ultimately going to take place.

[00:46:42] So in order to make sure that our residents get a tax deduction, we also have to give a reduction to the data centers. And so, but it continues to be a concern of mine here with the real property. It's becoming increasingly more expensive to live here in Loudoun County.

[00:46:58] And I think as a board, we really need to sharpen our pencils and look at each and every one of these budget requests. I know when we gave guidance originally to Mr. Hemstreet, we didn't realize, again, the complete growth that we would have. I think the equalized rate for if you include commercial property is almost seven cents around that area.

[00:47:17] So everything's especially housing getting increasingly more expensive. Obviously, we love a lot of the programs. We were making sure we're fully staffed and covering this. But I think as a board, we really need to look at what this is costing. It's making affordable housing far more expensive simply because every single one of those units gets taxed at this rate.

[00:47:35] And we've done it now for four years. This will be the fifth year we raise the real property tax rate. So I just wanted to say that up front. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau? Yeah. Well, we've lowered the bill, but the, you know, the lower the rate, but the bills haven't necessarily been lowered.

[00:47:52] So I will also vote for this motion to kick us off. I'm going to be tougher this year than I've been in the last several years. The reason for that is when you dive into the assessment discussion, and I encourage everybody to do this if you haven't done it in your districts, there is incredible variance there.

[00:48:11] and I've got some residents who had homes assessed from 900,000 to 1.1 million in a single year and it's easy for us to say well they have a million dollar house they can afford a tax increase well yeah except it's somebody who bought a house 20 years ago when it didn't cost anything close to that and now they're older they don't have as much income and now the taxes are going up just by virtue of that assessment increase so in that particular case it's a $1,300 increase in a single year. That's a lot. So I am going to be tougher this year on some of the priority requests. I apologize in advance to staff because I would believe me in a perfect

[00:48:47] world, I would be supporting everything we could. But there are some of the specific items that I'm just not sold on as being absolutely necessary. We have double the number of new positions in this budget 263 than we've had in every other year in the last five years we had 127 new positions last year it's a lot of new positions so at some point you know we have to and I say the same thing to the schools we have to stop we have to quit growing at eight or nine percent every single year it's just not sustainable and so you know this isn't going to be the year that we're going to make

[00:49:23] massive changes and slash the tax rate a ton or all that but you have to start somewhere so I'm going to be a little bit more on that side of things than I have been in the last couple budget cycles, just to warn everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would probably echo what Supervisor Letourneau just said. I actually would like to see us lower the real property tax rate.

[00:49:50] And you look at the requests for more funding for affordable housing, very, very laudatory requests, but the problem is every time we raise taxes on people, rents go up, making it less affordable, mortgages go up, making it less affordable, and I'm hoping that we can find some savings, potentially on the county side, but also on the school side, especially in an area where many, many additional high-level administrative positions were added

[00:50:29] to the school budget that I'm not sure fully justified so I I hope to look for some savings on that side as well as we go forward thank you but I will support this as a starting point miss Brixman thank you madam chair I will support this motion I just wanted to say that I did not realize that that the Commission of Revenue would have to find a hardship for us to use a percentage on our cars So that sort of killed my idea of having to fix the problem that Mr. Crony is trying to fix.

[00:51:05] I do agree that it's the right idea and that we should work it out and figure out how not to continue to lower the tax rate on the computer equipment. And I'd like us to work on an ordinance to do that. I have identified a couple places for savings in this budget, and I will be bringing a few motions.

[00:51:26] However, I want us to be fully funding the school budget, and if the governor, if they were to pass and the governor were to sign the Senate budget bill, that would mean that we could fully fund $131 million increase with the schools and answer everything they've asked for and have another $20 million here in our budget.

[00:51:52] So, given that the state has been underfunding our schools by $1,900 per student, and we have had to make that up with a local tax, I am not in agreement on trying to cut and cut from the schools.

[00:52:09] And so, I would like to see a little bit of savings on our side, but I would like to see us fulfill what the schools are asking for, and I'd like to see a General Assembly do that as well. Thank you. So, I think we're being way too loose with our language up here. we don't do assessments. The Board of Supervisors doesn't do assessments. And as Ms. Letourneau said, we've actually lowered the rate every year. The tax bill has gone up because an assessment has been done on homes that we don't do. We're not the assessor. And so when we say we're raising taxes, what you're actually saying is the assessor has assessed homes for more, and that has made

[00:52:45] the taxes go up even though we've lowered the rate. And that's real important to say it like that one because that's just a factually correct truth and also because yes home values matter if you sell your home and if they if you don't then I get that but you do want overall you want your home value to increase not decrease or at least stay stable and two this idea that the board is raising your taxes is just not a true statement we are lowering it every single year and responding to an assessment that we have no control over and so I think we need to be really really careful about the language we use up here about what is in our power, what's not in our power, what we

[00:53:24] actually do, and what we don't do. Secondly, Ms. Brixman is completely correct. The J-LARC study said that Virginia underfunds each student in the Commonwealth of Virginia by about $1,900 as student per student. We fund our students at a lower rate than West Virginia and Kentucky. If If that money were to come to us that would pass in the omnibus bill, we could absolutely fund this whole school system, and maybe other things do, but we don't know what they're doing yet, and we have to wait and find out, and hopefully we will know before we get to

[00:54:02] the end of the budget cycle, but I'm going to keep encouraging us to use precise language because I'm getting tired of seeing supervisors that raise your tax rate. No, we haven't. Literally not at all. Like at all. It does go up, but it's because your home values have gone up. And there's a big difference in how you say that. And by the way, everybody on this dais are taxpayers. Everybody on this dais have homes and everybody on this dais have to live with whatever decisions we're making. And none of us wants our tax rate to go up either. I will say

[00:54:40] at the beginning of this process what i say at the beginning of every single process i do not walk on this days with any fixed rate in mind of what this should be or shouldn't be i will go through the whole process give our department and apartment heads the respect of listening to them and my goal is to always fund the lowest tax rate possible while still getting the needed county services in place i do not have a fixed rate in my mind i do not believe anyone should i don't don't believe that's how you should start this process so having said that to the motion all

[00:55:14] the people who say please say aye any opposed nay that motion will pass 8-1 all right first um our first department you guys are here already thank you so much um and we are ready when you are supervisors the judges are the general well wait a minute no actually it's the judge of what page we are for them. Is it page R49 and R50 in the budget narrative 222 that we're looking at? Is that right? I'm asking our staff. Yes, that's right. Okay. Thank you. We're ready. Yes, we're ready

[00:55:53] when you are. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Good evening. Thank you, Chair Randall, members of the board and staff with whom we've had the privilege to work to bring this forward to you. I refer you to pages R-49, R-50. R-49 is for the General District Court. R-50 is for the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. And there was a revision to the R-49 as previously stated by Ms. Burke, which reflected the total caseload that we have in General District Court. I'd also

[00:56:30] refer you to pages 2-22 through 2-26. We thank you for the previous supplements that you all have provided to our clerk's office. And we are now requesting an increase from the 15 percent to 20 percent. And why is that important? The state has recognized that we need new positions. We now have 27 positions authorized in the general district court and 10 positions in juvenile and domestic

[00:57:07] relations. They have also recognized the workload that our clerks have, and they provided a 5% increase in 2023 in July and a 4% increase in December of 2023. We don't know about any increase for 2024-2025. Since August 2021, General District Court hired 34 employees, 15 of those employees left, and they all left with less than one and a half years of experience. Why is this important?

[00:57:45] This is important to the juvenile and domestic relations as well as General District because it takes us at least two years to train a clerk. Then we have now 27 positions in general district. We have two vacancies at this point. We have 25 employees. What's important? 16 of those 25 employees have less than a year and a half of experience, and 14 of those employees have less than one year of experience. What does this mean? This means we have five managers. We have only

[00:58:22] six employees that are trained to be able to be in each of our three courts and what they're doing is they're having to train train train that means the managers don't have opportunity to manage and they don't have opportunity to get the clerks trained so that they can serve the public this is an issue it's also an issue in juvenile and domestic relations court where they have They had a position last year, and now they have another vacancy.

[00:58:55] Why are they leaving? They're leaving because our clerks have to come in at 7.45 a.m. They don't leave until 4.30 p.m. That time is not flexible. That's their time. They don't have the opportunity for flexible hours.

[00:59:12] They don't have the opportunity to work remotely. And most importantly, they have competing and have incentives for other jobs. I'm going to give you an example. In Falk here, there's a county clerk position, deputy clerk.

[00:59:29] The range was $71,676 to mid-level of $56,160. Our clerks, the state has a step grade. 80% of our clerks are a grade 8.

[00:59:47] The grade 8 pay is $47,252. There is no range. that's what you get you don't get any more you don't get any less if you've been with the clerk's office for three months you get that pay if you've been with a clerk's office for 20 years you get that pay no step so you would only get the increases that the state provides loudon county treasurer's office salary range 46 939 08 to 63 367 75 for a collection assistant commonwealth

[01:00:25] Attorney's Office for a legal service assistant, $46,939.08 to $79,796.43. Even if you went in the mean of those, you would still be approximately $10,000 higher than what our clerks get. Can I tell you that the increases and the supplements have helped? Yes, they have. We have a better turnover than what we had before and for that we are so thankful but we are still not there and

[01:01:01] we request that you favorably consider this increase due to the fact that our courts serve so many people we had in general district court um 2023 almost 50,000 cases and juvenile domestic Relations Court has thousands of cases as well. In fact, they are, have put in to receive another judge, which we hope that the General Assembly will favorably consider. So we are busy entities

[01:01:40] and we serve a lot of the public. And we're requesting that in order to be more efficient, to provide shorter lines, we've had to close down our phone lines for certain hours because we can't staff it so we're asking you to consider this five percent increase and thank you for the opportunity and i'd like to introduce those people that are here to support us from the clerk system and from the court system and they are available to answer any questions as well chief judge brooks

[01:02:15] from juvenile and domestic relations court tina jones from the clerk of juvenile and domestic Relations, and our clerk Carla Clark, and then Judge Fitzpatrick. There weren't enough chairs for him to sit up here, but he is here as our cheerleader as well. He is a new judge in the General District Court, and of course, I'm Deborah Welsh with the General District Court, and we thank you for this opportunity. Judge Welsh, thank you. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for your explanation. Would any of the clerks like to add anything on to what Judge Welsh just said today? You're good? Okay. All right. Do we have any questions for Judge Walsh? Mr. Letourneau.

[01:02:55] Yeah. So in the budget book, it says it was an increase of 5% for fiscal year 23. States recognized the staffing crisis and is working to make the salary more attractive and approved a 5% increase in FY23, a 5% increase in July of 23, along with a 4% increase in December of 2023 so that's 14 and then on top of that there's the board of supervisors supplemental

[01:03:23] right that's correct but so 14 was just in 2023 no in 2022 there was a five percent then there was a five percent in july of 2023 and a four percent in december of 2023 so maybe i don't know maybe this is how this is written because it says i'll read it to you um the states recognize the staff crisis and approved a 5% increase in FY23 and a 5% increase for July of 2023. That's what it says,

[01:03:59] along with a 4% increase for December of 23. It was 5% for 2022. Okay, so it was nine, it should have been 9% and not 14%. That's correct. Okay, that helps a little. I guess I'm kind of, what you described, you're completely right on everything you said, but I'm kind of skeptical that another 5% is really going to solve this problem because you're describing like systematic problems with the salary structure pay scales that make no sense competition that you're still not to be able to reach because we're doing a seven percent increase for county employees so i'm just skeptical that another five percent for us is going to really

[01:04:37] make any difference to be honest i appreciate that um supervisor letourneau but the problem is if you don't give it to us then we're in an even larger deficit i mean we're going to be in a deficit regardless but if you don't give us the five percent that we're asking for we're going to be in a 12 percent deficit but your deficit isn't really just the 12 percent it sounds like it's it's problems with 100 percent agree yeah but but the way our staffing is and we have no control

[01:05:16] over how our staffing is is as judge welsh alluded to the our pay our staffing structure is based on grades but there are no steps in the grades and they determine for us based on the number of judges and our caseloads how many grade eights we're going to have how many grade nines we're going to have how many grade tens we're going to have we have no ability to promote our clerks from a grade eight to a grade nine to increase their salary there is nothing we can do within

[01:05:49] this pay system to incentivize them to stay and and this week well actually last week the vacancy that we have is one of our clerks resigned because the Falk here circuit court matched her salary with the supplement from Loudoun County so now this person who has been with us for quite some time we're now going to have to spend another year and a half to two years training and she was a grade 9. All right. Thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to address

[01:06:23] Supervisor Turner's logic on this. There is no question 5% supplemental increase is going to solve the problem. But almost to use your own words, we can't do this all in one year. We can't bite this whole apple in one year. A 5% increase isn't going to solve the problem. But a failure to give a 5% increase is certainly going to exacerbate the problem. That's really all I have Thank you.

[01:06:48] Thank you. Mr. Kershner. Thank you, Madam Chair. So my understanding from the budget itself, you're not requesting any additional position, just the increase in pay. Is that correct, the current position? That's correct. Okay. And how many vacancies did you say you currently have?

[01:07:05] The JDR court has one, and General District has two at this point. And how many have you hired in the last year? Because I understand how it is to train a law clerk. It's a real pain, and they learn about six months to a year, and if they leave, you're out up a creek without a paddle.

[01:07:24] The JDR court has hired one. This would be our second hire. Okay. And we have hired 16. Is that right? Okay. So I just want to point out to my colleagues that if you go back to R, starting on R2, where Mr. Hemstreet has broken down this and staff has broken down the summary of the proposed budget under the various tax increases starting at 84, which is the equalized rate, which we asked him to prepare so that we could review.

[01:07:56] These two resource requests are actually within the 84 at the equalized rate. So based upon county administration, and obviously I can speak firsthand as to how hard, I feel like every time I'm in court and I can speak directly, I feel like there's always a new clerk coming into the new courtroom every few months.

[01:08:14] So I do believe it creates a lot of difficulty. I think it's absolutely, this increase is needed. I agree it's not going to fix the problem, but not putting some money towards it is certainly going to exacerbate it. And if it's within the 84 cents, I'm certainly going to support it.

[01:08:32] So thank you for all the hard work that you do. It's not very often I get to have you in front of me. Mr. Sainz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you clarify for the record, who sets the grades and who says there can't be grades and all that? The Commonwealth of Virginia, the General Assembly.

[01:08:49] The General Assembly. Have you ever asked the General Assembly to? We have. And that's why we have the increases that we have. We're not unique in having clerk's office issues throughout the state.

[01:09:05] but um to this point they have not taken the initiative to change the pay grade or the pay scale um which there needs to be a total revamp i think as we all recognize but that's not been done at this point and and by any chance off your your dome here do you know record do you remember when the pay scale or the steps were whatever the system that we have now in place when was that put in place it's been in place as long as i've been on the bench which has been 12 years well there

[01:09:38] used to be, well, I've been on the bench a little longer, I guess. Yeah, 22 years in the same chair. It's a blessing. I'm grateful. But when I first started, it was a system where there were steps in the grade structure, and they changed that, I want to say, late 2008, 2009. Don't hold me to it, but in that time frame, because there was a recognition that that system was also broken.

[01:10:07] So they went to this grade system with no steps. And then over time, what the Supreme Court Executive Secretary has done is requested an elimination of the lower grades because they were paying less so that now the minimum starting grade is a grade 8.

[01:10:25] So that's how they've addressed it, is just eliminating the lower grades. But then, so you start at a grade eight, but in some localities, that's still not a living wage. Correct. Right. And then, like you said earlier in your statements, if you want to, you have somebody who's been there for a little bit and want to reward them for their tenure and service, you're doing a good job.

[01:10:45] You can't really do that because there's no grade. Exactly. And then the problem with the old system is someone who had been there longer was making more than their manager. So there was a problem with that structure, which is why they eliminated it to go to the current structure. But again, there are problems.

[01:11:01] I agree with some of my colleagues. There were statements earlier where, as you described, the system is broken holistically. If we give the 5%, don't give it the 5%, you're still going to be at a disadvantage regardless. But I think we still need to do the percent increase just to keep up with the levels that you're currently at now to maintain if the increases do take effect.

[01:11:23] So I would love to hear more offline and see what we could do possibly next cycle in our General Assembly program to fight and maybe rally some of the troops in other jurisdictions to go to the General Assembly and see what we can do about fixing the pay grades and the steps. We would appreciate that. And to be clear, the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court has been very supportive of the clerk statewide in requesting increases. So the issue is not with the Executive Secretary or the Supreme Court. The issue really is a budget issue.

[01:11:52] And as you all know, that comes from the General Assembly. Thank you. Ms. Glass? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for being here. I guess for my clarification, so is the pay grade, is it the same around the Commonwealth?

[01:12:12] Okay, so then it depends on the jurisdiction if they want to supplement to increase the pay of each FTE? Northern Virginia does have a supplement. It's a different one.

[01:12:29] Well, it's a differential. I shouldn't say a supplement. Judge corrected me. So we have a differential for Northern Virginia for the clerk's positions. But what I've given you is what we have for Northern Virginia.

[01:12:46] Okay. And to be clear, I'm sorry to interrupt, Falk here does not receive that differential. So when Falk here circuit court matched that pay, it was without a differential that the clerks in Loudoun. And that was a county position, that's true, but the clerks in Falk here don't receive that.

[01:13:05] It's Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Prince William. Thank you. Ms. Brooksman? Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of my questions were along the lines of Supervisor Sane's questions.

[01:13:22] I just want to make sure I understand the time to fix it is in the budget or in the Virginia Code? In the budget. It's in the budget. Okay, so it would be a budget request that would need to happen and I fully agree that we should be putting it in our legislative agenda to support the increase in the budget because this impacts our local taxpayers because we're making up the gap to make sure that you can have qualified candidates who stick around and when that doesn't happen,

[01:14:00] it costs our local taxpayers money and we have actually now two loud and barred attorneys representing us in the General Assembly, so I hope that they would be interested in taking up this cause, thank you.

[01:14:16] - This is so blazingly ridiculous, of course we're gonna support this, and I'll support more when you come next year as well, and the only reason this is a problem in the General Assembly 'cause it lets some people go back to their home districts and say they didn't raise taxes. That's what's happening here, and it is a crying out shame, and I will be happy to go with you all next year the General Assembly and go to every one of their offices and tell them to their face, it's a crying out shame.

[01:14:40] Supervisors, does anyone have anything they want to make a motion for, to remove, or do anything different? Thank you, and thank you for what you do. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much, and I thank you for the opportunity to be here. This will be my last time appearing before the board on behalf of the court system.

[01:15:01] I am retiring on July the 1st, so I hope you will make me very happy. support this increase. We will. As you know, I have been here many years going back requesting this increase, and many years we were told the state needs to do it, and you all did step up, and it has made a difference, and I thank you. Thank you, and we'll be at the retirement party.

[01:15:27] Thank you. All right, our next department is our Fire and Rescue Department, which you will find And on page, yes, our description of resource requests is R-51 through 54. The budget narrative is 2-28.

[01:15:45] Good evening. If I'm not mistaken, at this point, everything's in the budget, correct? Everything. We have any motions made or motions to take things out? That is correct.

[01:16:00] That is correct. Okay. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall and members of the board. If you are ready, I'll get started. We are ready. Okay. Tonight, thank you for having us. tonight I'm joined by Assistant Chief James Williams of the Operations Bureau, Assistant Chief Travis Prove, Support Services and Volunteer Administration, Mary McGuire, Manager of Budget, Finance and Administration, and Greg Keenan, our Budget Specialist. So I'll be brief. Tonight I want to highlight the following items that translate to our fiscal year 2025 resource requests, which begin on page R51. So just an overview of the items that we have

[01:16:37] in your budget this year for FY25. Two capital facility items which are associated with the opening of capital facilities. First and foremost, the Leesburg South staffing, which is phase two of our staffing request in preparation for the opening of the new Leesburg South station. Last year, the Board of Supervisors approved 30 of the 47 FTEs needed to operationalize the station during last year's budget process. As I mentioned, my promise came through where I was going to come back this year and request the balance of the 17 FTEs that are needed to open that facility.

[01:17:15] That facility is scheduled to open, was originally scheduled to May of 2025, but the station now is slated to open in July of 2026. As a result of that delay, the resource request along with the 30 positions from FY24 will serve as our staffing factor position until that station opens, similar to what we did with Kirkpatrick Farms when that station opened. The second request for capital facilities item is the lovetsville replacement station with an anticipated occupancy date of june of 24 staffing for this lovetsville station remains a priority the request will enable lcfr

[01:17:50] to staff our engine at lovetsville with four personnel one being an als provider and have dedicated staffing for the tanker which is currently cross-staffed with our ems transport unit i know you've heard about those items before and as far as a total of nine ftes associated with that opening. Our third item in the budget is for an EMS training specialist. This is an unfunded FTE. It's basically approval of the position only, and that is at our training academy. As you know, our Loudoun County Fire and Rescue is responsible for all entry-level training, both career and volunteer, for our fire

[01:18:26] and EMS members that provide education, professional development, and advanced courses in both fire and EMS, and many of these duties are accomplished by our department's training officers. This position will allow incumbent staff to focus more on classroom coordination and student instruction, ultimately increasing the teaching capacity at the academy. Our fourth position is a single data and analytics manager. I know there, I believe, are several of these in the department. And this position would supervise our planning and data analytics section and supervise a team that provides data and analytical expertise to our

[01:19:01] department. This position would coordinate, plan, and develop the methodology for LCFR's data analysis and preparation functions and oversee all performance of statistical analysis in our department and governance structure. And finally, position, which is a board priority that you would find on page R11, is for a union representative for IFF Local 3756. As you know, through a collective bargaining process between Loudoun County and IFF Local 3756, the county has tenderly agreed to detail or reassign one uniformed employee to a full-time day work union officer

[01:19:39] position, and this FTE will support LCFR's ability to comply with this agreement and prevent the department from absorbing this request. The approval of this request will allow the two parties to codify the terms of the collective, go forward towards codifying the terms of the tentative collective bargaining agreement and that is our positions chair Randall and members of the board in closing as I said today during my remarks at the celebration of life for Trevor Brown whether I get all my requests today or none of my requests my position still stands that I thank all of you for your

[01:20:15] support of public safety here in Latin County all of that and I couldn't be more happy to be your chief of this system and I thank you for all your support. Chief, thank you, and we couldn't be more happy to have you and more proud of the entire combined fire and rescue system today, every day, but most especially today. Supervisors, you have questions. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. The request for a data analyst, and in all the words I heard you say and everything I read, that tells me he or she is going to analyze data, and I was Just wondering if you can get a little bit more context

[01:20:55] on exactly what that person's going to do. Absolutely. I think the coordination is probably the word. So last year on last year's budget, you gave us a position. It's very similar, but it was an IT manager. That position has proved so much benefit in our department, gathering all of our IT things that we do and created us a single platform for IT, and we have just propelled forward moving forward with that position.

[01:21:21] This is very similar. Right now, I have a department planner. I detail a full-time captain to the Office of Planning, and I have GIS specialists, and they will all work in different areas. This would make a supervisor of all those four personnel, which currently is not the case.

[01:21:37] If you were to ask probably the four of us sitting at this table, we have so many data analytics programs in our department, countless programs that provide me as the chief and my staff data. But if you ask four of us, you might get four different answers on how that data is analyzed and what that data looks like and who is setting the priorities and who is coordinating that data.

[01:21:56] That's what this position would do is coordinate the data and analytics of how we actually look at the data, compose it, and then ultimately provide it to you, the citizens, moving forward. So it is totally a coordination of data rather than somebody, a supervisor of data.

[01:22:13] What comprises the data? Is it number of rescues per week over the last three months? Is it, I mean, what is the data? So our computer-aided dispatch center acts like the parent in the whole organization. Everything flows through that system, through our Motorola P1 CAD system.

[01:22:32] The number of hours we spend on calls, the number of resources we have dedicated. So really what it would do is ultimately allow us to use the data to, do we have our resources in the right place? Do we have our personnel in the right place? Should we put people here and not there? That's just an example, but there's so much a personnel database, right?

[01:22:51] Obviously, we rely on county HR for that, but we have numerous systems of how we staff our apparatus, what personnel we put on each apparatus, the amount of hours we spend on apparatus. And we are talking about a system data, not just Loudoun County Fire and Rescue. This will benefit the entire system.

[01:23:07] Good. I'd hit it. Thank you. Mr. Lutardo. Thank you, Chief, and thank you so much for everything that you've done for us and the day we've had. I'm sorry you have to spend it with us tonight. Okay. I am certainly not going to remove anything, but I did want to dive into the question on the four-person staffing on engines.

[01:23:26] So I interpreted the answer to my question as, as a new station comes online, we automatically staff that with four people. I guess my question is, and I'm sure you've thought about this, but my question is, wouldn't it make more sense to add the fourth person where we have the highest volume and where we have the greatest need as opposed to just the fact that it happens to be a new station?

[01:23:52] I'm going to let Chief Williams, I think I've talked enough today, so I'm going to let Chief Williams take that question. Thank you, Supervisor LeTourneau. So one of the, if you go back to the 2019 service plan, we really focus on the effective firefighting force and being able to build that number of people to safely address and combat a fire incident. So where we have the longer time and distance responses in the western part of the county is important to us where we want to help build that effective firefighting force by adding

[01:24:25] that fourth person to the engines. So while certainly there are more calls and more fire related calls in the eastern part we're able to get all those resources to that scene based on shorter time and distance travel time so you need more manpower quickly at some of the western locations because you can't bring additional units in as easily because it takes longer for that okay fourth and fifth engine so with that in mind then i guess my same question would still sort of apply it may be in this particular case the new station kind of fits that criteria but for for future requests would you look to prioritize those stations ahead of others i'm just saying

[01:25:04] like it seems it seems like your answer here was a little different which was basically if it's a new station it automatically is going to have four and i don't know you know we have some changes coming but is that necessarily the case or is it more as a needs based on a yearly basis we are going to add we're going to continue to increase to build a four but you're going to be strategic with where you're picking that so the request with lovitzville and leesburg south fit within what we understand to be the board priorities of the opening of new capital facilities.

[01:25:33] And in recognition of the support that you've given us as well as the other departments, I don't think that it's reasonable for us to bring the 70-something FTEs at once. So that's our way of starting to phase it in as best as we can. Yeah, I guess what I'm saying, though, is if there comes a point where the operational needs of the department deviate a little bit from that, then I think you should prioritize that over you know what our sort of standard or policy may be on a new opening yes sir okay mr kirschner thank you madam chair and thank you chief and your staff and thank you for the

[01:26:09] incredible memorial service today i was really blown away and quite frankly um it was incredibly moving and a real honor to trevor brown for service that he provided and certainly to his family thank you um i'm going to support all your requests i believe i only had one follow-up question. Obviously, everything that you've requested falls under the 84 cents, which is the equalized rate. It's a pretty easy sell for me. I know Supervisor Turner, he showed he has a remarkable grasp of the obvious that the data analyst manager is a data analyst.

[01:26:42] But could you, is anyone at all in the department doing this right now? Is this just kind of falling by the wayside? And is this a specialized area that's needed specialized education for this particular FTE? So it is being done, but it's been being done by a bunch of different people, and no one other than myself and my two ACs, and those are here at this table probably, there's not one person supervising that area of data analytics and coordination. Again, we do have a fire department planner. Her role is quite different than some of the traditional planners

[01:27:20] that we have throughout the county, and I do detail a captain who's been there for six years. It has changed, but we detail a captain that has experience with data and so forth. And my two GIS specialists that, obviously, you know what they do, they're in a completely different area of communication.

[01:27:37] So I'm looking to bring all these together and look at how it can propel us really like this IT manager did last year. I can't explain the benefit that we received from that position. And is this a common, in large jurisdictions like ourselves, in larger, is this a common position?

[01:27:56] Can you speak to that as well? Absolutely can. So when I left Fairfax some 10 years ago, they had one or two, and I think they have a staff of almost 10 now there. And talking to Chief Butler, my peer, my chief in Fairfax, it has absolutely propelled their organization to be able to look at the data analytics and driving their service plan.

[01:28:16] The fact that Fairfax has 10, you sold me. Yeah. Thanks. Heard that. Mr. Crony. Thank you so much, Chief Johnson. And I appreciate your service, and I was really honored to attend the Celebration of Life today.

[01:28:33] Thank you. So I've never attended one of those ceremonies before, so I was really honored. Thank you. Thank you. In honor of Trevor Brown. I will be supporting everything tonight. The Leesburg South Station is actually in Little River, and I think you have a site, so you're all set, which is awesome.

[01:28:49] Right. What is the HAZMAT unit? Does that require additional? I think that was something unique, right? That requires a little additional staffing, right? Absolutely. So the HAZMAT, so yes, Leesburg South, the site is there. It's getting ready to go out for bid. If it hasn't gone out already, I believe it's in the final stage of going out for bid.

[01:29:06] So we should be breaking ground there in the near future. And it's right there off of Woods Road next to the landfill on Evergreen Mills. The HAZMAT unit is assigned to Company 19 today, Dallas South, but it is not staffed. The HAZMAT and the support unit, which are two different units, are cross-staffed.

[01:29:23] So if the engine gets a call, the HAZMAT unit is not staffed, which falls as a vulnerability. to us. So the idea was we have dedicated staffing for personnel for the HAZMAT unit to be able to respond to hazard materials calls, which actually happened on Silver Ridge Drive. They were one of the primary units we added to that call. And the support unit would continue to be cross-staffed, but the HAZMAT unit would be staffed. And then we did move it from Dulles South because, as you know, Leesburg South is really much in the center of the county, which is where that unit needs to be. Besides running calls for hazardous materials calls, we're required to do hazardous materials

[01:30:01] operations refresher training every year. It's required by law. And right now we do it kind of distance learning. Our goal is to do it hands-on. So when they're not responding to calls, this crew is going around the station to assist in that training and do more hands-on training, which again, we're required to do by law. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Brixman. Thank you, Madam chair um i don't want to belabor the point i know that we've all had a very emotional day and you guys probably want to go home i'll just let you know that um i'm happy to support all of your resource requests and i have some other questions for you but i i got your number and uh we we can

[01:30:40] talk in a couple weeks about some other things that that are on my mind but i hope you guys get some rest thank you thank you um i would say that i don't plan on taking anything out nor adding anything into the budget, your budget requests. But I do have a question about, because we talked about this, where are you at on the therapy dog or comfort dog discussion, especially after this couple of weeks, we see the value. And you and I talked about that before. I thought there was going to be something in this budget for that, but it wasn't. Where are you at on that?

[01:31:11] So thanks for the question. And obviously, for folks on the board, Chair Randall, I know Supervisor Sainz and I have had conversations. So I think we all understood the value of therapy dogs this week. And I think I mentioned it today that we are not done today just because we had a celebration of life.

[01:31:32] The behavioral health needs of our organization will be ongoing for a long time. And certainly we have a lot of personnel that we employ. We have a behavioral health coordinator. And we brought in people from around the state, over the states, from the last week and a half, two weeks, since February 16th.

[01:31:50] Part of that has been a response of therapy canines. And I'm a supporter of this. And we have, over the last couple months, put together a committee that has been looking at this. It really is just not as simple as bringing a dog to work. It really does require policies, procedures, training, just a host of things.

[01:32:10] So we've had a committee working on this well before this incident happened on Silver Ridge, but we're not rushing it. We know that there's work to do, legal work to do. So we're developing those policies and procedures right now. But that is a, if you ask me, that's a gap in our organization now, especially now that we've seen the benefit of these canines and what they can do.

[01:32:30] So I'm not prepared to obviously offer anything tonight. We certainly would work with our budget office and county administrator on any future need. - So my next question is, So right now, I think, well, I know we are getting a lot of great support. I talked to Vicki Taylor today, who happens to be the person who years ago hired me, which is amazing.

[01:32:51] She's become, no kidding, probably the world leader in how to deal with trauma, first responder trauma. And one of the things she and I talked about a couple of days ago is what the great response is right now, getting help from Prince William County, from Fairfax County, to peer help.

[01:33:09] But going forward in the next year, some of that support will start to wane off and fall away. Before we get to next year's budget, some of that support will start to wane off or fall away. Do we have anything in mind, because I'm actually thinking about, not today, but see where we're at at the end of the budget and then bring you all back.

[01:33:27] Do you have anything in mind about contracts or something else you can do to kind of float us until next year until you can get more of the behavioral health, mental health needs in that we know we're going to need this year?

[01:33:43] I'm a little concerned that, you know, as this event gets further in the rearview mirror, some of those peer support helps for weighing off and we're going to still need a lot of things. I do, and there are third-party organizations that we rely on to bring these canines.

[01:34:01] Most of them are certified by some organization. No, not just a canine, just help. So, yes, I employ one behavioral health coordinator, thankfully, and she has been a consent to us over the past couple of years. We couldn't have done it without her. She's been the organizer of our efforts, and I certainly have some ideas.

[01:34:20] I had some ideas before February 16th, but I just can't stress enough that this is going to continue for a long time. My words today spoke about my staff laughing one minute and crying the next. It's absolutely the truth, and those needs will be ongoing.

[01:34:39] I would really like the opportunity to work with Mr. Hemstreet and the budget office to, you know, see if there's something immediate that we can bring forward to answer your question. Yeah. I might have you back before the end of the budget. All right. Thank you. Do we have any motions to remove anything from this budget? Did not think so. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Go home, everybody. All y'all. We say you guys all go home right now and go to bed because we're okay, right, Chief Pro?

[01:35:12] Okay. Our next will be our clerk of the court. You will find the clerk of the court on page R39 through R40 and budget narrative 2-8, 2-8. Good evening, sir. How are you?

[01:35:36] Turn on your mic. Turn your mic on. Turn your mic on, brother. You mean you can't hear me? It's a little better now.

[01:35:53] Thank you again for having me be here this evening, Chair Randall, Vice Chair Bristman, ladies and gentlemen of the board. Friday was a special day because it was Employee Appreciation Day, and I paused to recognize my employees for their dedication and commitment to my office and to the taxpayers of Loudoun County.

[01:36:08] The most important resource that I have in my office are my people. I've got a great team. They're very dedicated and loyal. They provide a valuable service to the residents of Loudoun County. As an elected constitutional officer, I have a responsibility to be accountable with the resources that the board allocates to me, Accountable to you, the board, accountable to our taxpayers, our residents, but I'm also accountable to the people who serve with me.

[01:36:31] Because they're so dedicated and commitment, it's my responsibility to make sure that I seek resources to empower them to continue providing valuable resources to this great community we call Loudoun County. Henceforth, I presented two resource requests to the county administrator, Tim Hempstreet.

[01:36:47] I'm very grateful Mr. Hempstreet has included these resource requests in his budget. and now I ask that you would consider them and also approve them as part of the FY 2005 adopted budget. The first one, and both, by the way, are referenced on pages R4 and R5 of the budget document. The first one dedicated to my criminal case management division, which is a legal clerk position, I think is on page R39. The second one you will find on page R40, which is a information

[01:37:22] technology technician position. The criminal case management division has experienced tremendous workload increases for the past five fiscal years. The last time this board appropriated an additional position for my office for this specific division, the criminal case management division, was in fiscal year 2017. Since then, again, the caseload has increased considerably. There's other processes that the criminal case management team does every day besides processing the criminal court cases.

[01:37:54] That includes capiaces, criminal payment plans for individuals who've been found guilty and convicted of a criminal offense in circuit court. They can set up a payment plan in my office. They would do so with this team. They also manage something called search warrants, which is really the driving force for pursuing this resource request.

[01:38:15] Over the past five fiscal years, the volume of search warrants have increased by 84%. And the largest volume of those come from our local sheriff's department, our sheriff's deputies, but we also receive search warrants from the town police departments, the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority Police, state police, just to name a few others.

[01:38:36] So, again, the driving factor was we cannot sustain the right ratio of staff or workload, particularly with search warrants, unless we have an additional resource to address this considerable workload increase. As always, before I ask Mr. Hemstreet to consider putting something in his budget, I analyze what we can do internally.

[01:38:56] And I've done that in the past. Instead of coming to Mr. Hemstreet and subsequently to this board, if I can shift resource in the office internally, I do so. So I've already analyzed that, and I've challenged my staff, my management staff, to look at doing that. When I realized we could not do that, I then challenged my staff to justify even putting this request before Mr. Hemstreet, and they provided substantial data in terms of our caseload in doing so.

[01:39:22] Another factor we're seeing is we're already seeing our current Congress attorney being very aggressive about pursuing felony cases. The number of indictments is already going up, and at this pace, that's another reason we're going to need to have this resource fulfilled to make sure that we have enough staffing in our criminal case management division to keep up with the additional caseload that we predict for the circuit court. I'll come back and answer any questions about this position unless, Madam Chair, you'd like to pause and ask questions now, otherwise I can move on to the second.

[01:39:53] No, go into the second one. Let's do them all at once. The second one is part of my information technology team. I have an information technology team of two, a manager, another technician. They support all the technology systems in my office, which includes land records and deeds, Our Supreme Court case management system for both criminal and civil cases, our marriage license technology, probate system, just to name a few.

[01:40:17] So I have my own internal systems administrators who manage these systems. You may be wondering, well, why do I need people to manage the Supreme Court systems? Well, the Supreme Court's not going to allocate people from Richmond to come work in our local courts that manage these technologies.

[01:40:33] So they will authorize my deputy clerks to manage these technologies that the Supreme Court offers. So I need sufficient staffing to maintain these systems. But in addition to maintaining the systems for my office, they also support the circuit court judges. The circuit court judges do not have their own information technology team.

[01:40:50] So as a courtesy, since they're my neighbors and I work with them, I provide IT support for the judges in their judges' chambers, for the judges themselves, for their staff, but more importantly for the courtrooms. If you're having a technology issue in the courtroom during a hearing or trial, The judges can't wait for someone just to show up when it's convenient.

[01:41:10] In many occasions, even though I have priorities in my office, the priority is always going to be in the courtroom if they have a tech issue. So many times, my technology team will go to the courtroom and take care of an issue there instead of coming to help me address an issue that I may be dealing with.

[01:41:27] In the future, which is the real genesis for this position request, I'm pursuing a new case management system. This is a major undertaking. It's going to be at least a four- to five-year endeavor. It's going to involve all the stakeholders, the courts, the commons attorney, the sheriff's office, and many more.

[01:41:45] It's going to be a long process. I want to start this process July 1, but I need this position in the budget because I need my technology manager to be with me on my journey. I need a technologist to be part of my team to help me analyze technologies and opportunities, bring all the stakeholders together, and have that technology perspective.

[01:42:06] Without this manager, I'll lack the technology expertise I will need to pursue this long process. So the manager will be available to me because with this resource request being filled, this position will be on hand with our second staff person to handle day-to-day help desk scenarios in my office for the circuit court, as well as manage all these technology systems I have in my office that support other county agencies as well as many businesses in Loudoun County.

[01:42:34] So those are my requests for the board. I appreciate your consideration, and I'm available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much, sir. Supervisors, do you have any questions for Mr. Clemons or the clerk of the court office? Mr. Kirshner.

[01:42:50] Mr. Clemons, how are you today? Fine, sir. You? I'm good. Thank you very much. So on the information technology technician, too, what I understood you to say in simple terms is you're going to need your actual manager to come alongside of you.

[01:43:08] and his normal day-to-day duties right now to be kind of handed off, in part anyway, maybe not full oversight, to this particular position. Is that right? He currently, as the manager, does a lot of the day-to-day help desk scenarios, manages all the systems in this office, and supports the judges just like his support staff person does.

[01:43:29] So if I have this resource request, I have two positions similarly classified. They're handling the day-to-day technology issues so my manager can be with me as we go through this process. Do we anticipate if our, I mean, I know there's talk about maybe adding another judge in the future, this new system that you're going to, do we anticipate these resource requests growing in the future, potentially?

[01:43:53] What I anticipate in the future, Supervisor Kushner, is once we have this new system in place, we're going to need a systems administrator to manage this new technology. Right now, as I mentioned, we're using Supreme Court technology for our court cases. They serve as the SIS Administrator from Richmond.

[01:44:11] When we have our own enterprise system, we're going to have to have someone who's in charge of that and work with our local DIT staff in terms of the county application. So in the future, what I see is this manager position, once we get the system in place, will be responsible with this brand-new enterprise system that we'll have for the courts.

[01:44:29] Will this enterprise system be interactive with the current Supreme Court system, or will it be kind of like Fairfax where they're, like, two separate and they're really a pain for the user side of things. I'm assuming it's going to be more helpful for the user side. Yes, sir. You have to have some interfaces because by statute, there's certain information that the clerks have to share with the Supreme Court.

[01:44:47] So there'll have to be some data exchange and some interfaces built in. So, yes, there'll be some requirements built into the proposal and into the system itself to make sure we have those connections with the Supreme Court. But more importantly, we'll have a connection with other county agents that we don't have today. The commonwealth's attorney may need data.

[01:45:04] Commonwealth attorneys going way back have asked me for data that I simply cannot provide because the system we're currently using does not allow us to generate it. I actually have to call the Supreme Court on occasion to ask for reports I want that I can even run, and hopefully they can produce it, and usually I get it in the next 24 hours or 72 hours.

[01:45:22] So the fact that I have to ask for reports and not available to me on demand, for example, my land record system, I can run performance metrics on the spot. Right. I can track workflow. I don't have any of that capability with the case management system. And this is not being critical at all of the technology out of Richmond.

[01:45:40] For 120 circuit court clerks, this technology works just fine. Well, Loudoun County and Northern Virginia and a few other high-population counties, it's simply not meeting our needs, and now's the time to go a different path. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Umstead.

[01:45:56] Thank you, Madam Chair. So for board members who would like to see the real estate tax rate lowered, all the positions you requested would be funded if we lowered the tax rate by half a penny down to 87 cents. But if we wanted to go down a full penny, we would lose your information technology

[01:46:27] technician too. Tell me how that position makes life better for the average taxpayer in Loudoun County. For the average taxpayer in Loudoun County, you're going to see an empowerment of many agencies in Loudoun County to make them more efficient how they do business with the courts.

[01:46:49] The commotion attorney and sheriff's office would be able to have information available to them because they would be part of the stakeholder meetings to put together the technical requirements for what we need in the system. So they'd be able to actually have features in the system, make them more efficient, effective, how they do business. And that's just two of many agencies in county where these county agencies will be more efficient how they do business with the court so ultimately i'd like to think if we're empowering these agencies down the line five years from now when we have this new system we're going to see a benefit to the average taxpayer because these agencies in doing their business for the taxpayers will be more effective and more efficient thank you

[01:47:28] mr crony yeah thank you chair randall so i was looking at your um budget analysis and it looks like you have a surplus i don't know if that's true um based on your expenditures and revenues it looks like you have a surplus um coming into your department i just was wondering kind of what well we always bring in more than we spend because the deed recordation tax among other taxes i collect uh their state tax is collected in the county portion so uh we do well and have done well because we're very blessed in this county that people are still buying selling property

[01:48:07] so even though i'm in a surplus we're all part of a bigger team right so i just everyone everyone has to do their part so i feel like i'm bringing in revenue that's helping you and mr hemstreet provide more benefits to everyone in this team this is a valuable team to me so i'm glad to be in the position to create a surplus okay great well thank you would anyone like to take anything out of the budget make any motions? Seeing none, thank you very much. Thank you for your time and thank you all for your service. Thank you for your service as well. Thank you. Okay, we're going to go

[01:48:44] next to the Commonwealth Attorney. Just turn one page over because that Commonwealth Attorney's budget starts page R41 to R45, a description of resource requests. The budget narrative is 2 to 12 on the budget narrative. Good evening.

[01:49:14] Thank you so much for giving me time tonight to explain our budget request to the county. Let me just say that in the course of this first two months in this office, I can't express enough the gratitude I have for the sheriff, for the sheriff's department, for Gary Clemens and the clerk's office because we work together and we have to work together extremely close, and we would not be able to get where we need to go without that type of

[01:49:50] cooperation, particularly between those three offices. In addition, I'd like to thank Aaron McClellan for being here, Andrew Schofield, and Kim Fernandez from my office, and let me explain to you where we are. We're in the process in this third month of doing things a little different.

[01:50:15] we're not asking for any new attorney's positions. We're asking for some positions that are not part of the attorney's process. The main priority that I have in this office is to be able to get these two investigators on board, and I want to say that I have absolutely no problems or questions.

[01:50:40] I am so grateful to the Sheriff's Department, and it has nothing to do with what's being done or not being done in the Sheriff's Department. These two investigators, in my opinion, are instrumental in helping us get to the next step here within this prosecutor's office.

[01:50:57] And by that, I mean things like multi-jurisdictional task forces, being members of task forces on human trafficking, fentanyl. I want people on the ground to be able to talk to me, strategize with me, and that I have control over to be able to send them out to do certain things.

[01:51:15] I'll tell you real quick, I don't want to go through war stories, but the first time I was up here, I was elected, we had a serial killer in the county. It was 20 years old. So I could not get an investigator out of the sheriff's department or anybody else. And I understood that completely because they were too busy. So we got funding for a new one for an investigator for our office. That person, by the way, was Gary Clements. And he traveled up and down the East Coast, put this case together with the evidence that we needed to be able to convict this person. That's an example of why I need that

[01:51:50] type of a person. I want to be able to branch out into areas that involve, as I indicated, multi-jurisdictional and task forces that are currently in operation. So when I put that on there as my priority, it was one and it was my top priority because I think it's that important.

[01:52:10] Priority two, docket manager. There is no docket manager in the Commonwealth Attorney's Office right now, but things happen sometimes because of the volume and the seriousness of communications that go forward between the clerk's office and the sheriff's department. And so the docket manager is an individual that helps with those other agencies along with the Commonwealth Attorney's Office. We had some instances where there was an individual that was released that shouldn't have been, and we got lucky because that person was a illegal alien. He was taken in custody by ICE.

[01:52:49] If that hadn't happened, we might have had a serious problem. But there's a number of communications there's a lot of communication between the common attorney the clerk and the sheriff's department that can be managed and help to be more efficient one of those areas is indictments and so basically the level of indictments is going up gary clemens just told you that i think probably the sheriff will say the same thing we are indicting more people and we are taking more cases to trial so i mean that's the the long and the short of it we are not

[01:53:28] dealing cases out like that have been done in the past. So we've got more volume. In addition to that, we are prosecuting cases, all cases, that are part of the criminal statutes. We're not backing away from any of those. So some of those people, some of those resources require more resources to be able to get those places or get those positions in motion. Paralegal. We have nine paralegals right now, and they're all filled. We have a legal services assistant, three of those,

[01:54:05] And part of that is we want to make the temporary legal services assistance in that office permanent right now. There's two temporary legal services people. Sorry, three. Three. I'm sorry. I misread my own notes.

[01:54:22] All right. So the part-time project coordinator, I want to make sure you understand, is a new position. That's one that we think will provide more efficiency and more effectiveness in the way we communicate and work with the clerk's office and the sheriff.

[01:54:41] Our budget request includes some items, dollar items, that were part of peripheral costs in benefits and approvals given to the last administration.

[01:55:01] So there's nothing we can do about that. We have reduced it down to a point where we think it's workable. That's in the area of operations and management. Those costs were not included into the last administration, but they were included in this one.

[01:55:17] We had no control over that. So in addition to that, I can tell you that the communication of criminal cases, not just here in Loudoun County, but it's changed all over the place. We've got dash cams, we've got body cams, we've got a number of pieces of evidence that need to be reviewed.

[01:55:35] And these positions, in addition to the ones I've already mentioned to you, are, I think, essential in getting that job done. My understanding in looking at the latest figures in the last two months, our involvement, drug cases have gone up, juvenile felonies have gone up.

[01:55:57] So the need is there, in my opinion. If there's anything I can do to answer any questions, I'll be more than happy to try. Go ahead. I don't believe you discussed the last request, the chief of staff, assistant to the chief of staff.

[01:56:20] The assistant to the chief of staff is intended as a project person working with the chief of staff who is responsible for projects like these, the ones that Gary Clemens just talked about. I mean, I know nothing, almost nothing about technology, and we need help in this area.

[01:56:40] So basically, that assistant chief of staff is responsible for, would be responsible for upcoming projects, including new software implementation for case management and discovery. We're in the process of going through that transition with the Sheriff's Department called the Motorola system.

[01:56:56] That's where we were for a period of time last week in receiving instruction. That person would be our expert in that area in getting us up to speed on the evidence software that we need to be able to try cases. In addition to that, this person would help in implementing streamlined areas for case management, discovery, record retention, compliance, and there's other projects that could be added on to that.

[01:57:24] But basically she's involved, that person would be involved in storage retention as well, which is a requirement that we have to be able to retain evidence in cases. So our volume is up.

[01:57:40] I can tell you that basically what we're doing right now is trying more cases, and we will continue to do that with perspective. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor, do you have questions? Please turn your light on Mr. Sains.

[01:57:57] Thank you, Madam Chair. And this will be my last question because I have to actually leave a little early today. Thank you for the presentation. So you mentioned it was listed as assistant to the chief of staff, but you're saying it's actually more of a project coordinator position. And that person, if allowed, will work with the sheriff's department in regards to the collections and the sharing of the data for the dash cam videos and the body camera.

[01:58:24] This is part of trial preparation. So basically what we'd be doing is using that person to review evidence in preparation for trial. We also would use that individual as an interface with the clerk's office as well. Okay, so who is doing that work currently right now?

[01:58:43] Well, we need a coordinator right now with our new system. Andrew is working on it, but we need an individual to coordinate that system and work it into not only the Commonwealth Attorney's Office. Okay, back up one second, because I understand the Sheriff's Department and your office or the Commonwealth Attorney's Office has been working on this project for some time now.

[01:59:01] So would that responsibility shift to this person or? In our office. So it would shift from the person who's currently doing that now to this position that you're proposing? Well, nobody's doing it right now. I mean, it would shift. There'd be a responsibility for that person. Okay, so wait a minute.

[01:59:18] We were told that that program was almost up and running or you guys have been working on the data collection and working with the Sheriff's Department for that dash kit for the body camera. I'm not talking about body camera. I would be talking, the body camera information comes, that's not new technology, that's old technology.

[01:59:36] The issue that I'm talking about is evidence software that would come forward from, the system right now is Motorola. And that's where we're being trained to be able to access data across the board in preparation for trial.

[01:59:52] Okay, so can you clarify for me, the Motorola system that you're talking about, Is that the new system that will be supporting the body cam program that you guys have been working with, the Sheriff's Department? Yes. So that is the new program. So who is currently doing that work right now? Right now, we don't have anybody in our office working on that coordination effort.

[02:00:10] We have a new system software, Evidence Retention, which is Motorola. And so we are in the process of assigning those responsibilities over to an individual to be able to make sure that works. Okay. With due respect, that doesn't jive because, again, we've been told and had a briefing, an update, that that program was working and coming almost 100% online.

[02:00:33] So if nobody's doing that work, then that update that we received in finance, are you saying it's inaccurate? No. Right now, we have evidence retention software. It's called SharePoint. It's being replaced. And so it's going from SharePoint software, evidence retention, over to...

[02:00:52] Okay. So you do have somebody on staff who manages SharePoint, correct, right now, correct? Yes, and then I'm assuming they've been working with the transition to Motorola. Is that not accurate? Yes, they can. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sains. Mr. Turner.

[02:01:09] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks, sir. I appreciate you being here. I want to ask some questions, and I'm not trying to be contentious or trolling or anything like that. I'm trying to get a sense of you're asking for seven and a half FTE positions, and I'm trying to get a sense of what is the principal motivator.

[02:01:29] In FY21, we increased the office by three people, in FY22 by three people, in FY23 by six people, in FY24 by five people. I will note that your predecessor asked for 22 people, no, disregard, disregard.

[02:01:47] My point is, there was a, as I understand it as a layman, you and your predecessor have varying views of your prosecutorial philosophy. And we don't need to get into details. And like I said, I'm not fishing for anything here. And I accept that as part of the job and the election and everything else.

[02:02:06] What I'm trying to nail down is, is this seven and a half people request, FTE request that you're making, is it a function of that change in philosophy? Is it a function of the people that we've given to the office in the last four years is not enough?

[02:02:22] Did they not stay there? Did they leave? Is there a lot of turnover? So what's driving that? Is it your new vision for the office that's driving this or what? Because it just seems like a high request compared to the historical number that we've increased the office. It's an increase in volume. And part of the increase in volume, that's why I brought up the fact that right now we've got drug cases are two months in the last two months, up.

[02:02:46] Juvenile violence is up in the last two months. In addition to that, and I was given specific instructions when I came up here not to get into. Understand. I don't want to throw any darts. Yep, understand. But I can tell you that part of that problem is reinstituting the prosecution of 16 classes of misdemeanor cases that were previously not prosecuted.

[02:03:14] So it's a combination of all of that. These are not attorney's positions. We've got enough attorneys in that office right now. What we need are support staff to be able to get those attorneys where they want to go.

[02:03:29] I think right now we have 10 or 11 unopened attorney positions, and we're anxiously trying to fill those positions that are as fast as we can. And so to try to answer your question concisely, I would say that increase the fact that we're reinstituting the prosecution of cases that weren't being prosecuted before, and we're going to trial.

[02:03:58] We're basically going to more trials. There's less plea agreements. And I'm not saying a plea agreement is bad, because in cases it can be good. But we are trying more cases. We're in the courtroom more. Thank you. Thank you.

[02:04:14] Ms. Umstead? Thank you, Madam Chair. First, Mr. Anderson, thank you very much for working closely with the sheriff. I really appreciate it when the Commonwealth's attorney and the sheriff work together.

[02:04:31] On the investigators, I appreciate the request for investigators in the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office. Is it fundamentally different and more effective to have an investigative arm within the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office in addition to the investigative arm which the sheriff has, which I think the sheriff has perhaps 98 personnel in investigations,

[02:05:07] So just for those of us who are not Commonwealth's attorneys or sheriffs, could you explain the relationship between the investigator positions you want and what the sheriff has and why it's essential that you have investigators in your office?

[02:05:25] Okay, so with the sheriff's department, the vast majority of cases that come into our office come from the sheriff's department. But there's nine different other police agencies, eight different police agencies that filter cases into that office. And so one of the things that we did years ago was try to get this investigator for purposes of tying the rest of those police agencies together.

[02:05:51] And by eight different police agencies, I'm referring to MOI, State Police, Town Police, a number of other agencies. So what we were trying to do was to get it to a point where we could have an individual help with trial preparation, knowing full well that some of those systems weren't the same. And so that's part of what we were trying to do.

[02:06:10] We are trying to get to a point where in a special grand jury, we're able to use an individual as an investigator that would be unfair to ask the sheriff or anybody else to do.

[02:06:35] And that person would work with our office for purposes of presenting cases possibly. Sheriff's department is always going to have a major role in everything that we do. But if we have to coordinate it together through a special grand jury to be able to tie it together, that's where these investigators are helpful.

[02:06:54] very helpful and I've had experience with that I said before with the prior investigator that we had it worked very well and to the point where the last time I was in this office we got two investigators so we got two we had two investigators in the office and it was one of those situations where they would be asked to do things that we couldn't ask the sheriff's department to do like go out and check this subpoena or do that so it is something that is more at

[02:07:32] the command of the Commonwealth Attorney's Office which is able to help then tie the cases together which the Sheriff's Department has already put together but these are issues that would be unique to what we need think we need for purposes of prosecuting these cases okay so it's unique and it's not something that it would be in my opinion fair to ask the Sheriff's Department to do. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kirschner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you and welcome, Mr.

[02:08:03] Ensign. I wasn't here when you were last elected Commonwealth's attorney. I was barely out of diapers, I think, but no, not quite, but I guess it's been about 20 years. Barely out of diapers. Give me a break. A little exaggeration. I appreciate the work you're doing. Congratulations on your election. Welcome to the boardroom on your first budget request. I'm going to take a little bit different approach here. As you know, I've been previously in the Commonwealth Attorney's Office with Mr. Plowman and then worked within the courts and with the Commonwealth Attorney's Office in terms of cases on the other side of the spectrum. So I have a pretty good sense of things that kind of go on and don't go on in there. One of the things that was frustrating

[02:08:43] me often with the last administration was all the ongoing resource requests. I appreciate your requests for the investigators I think I kind of fundamentally disagree and I'm not going to support that request obviously the other board members want to they're they're more than welcome to I don't think we've had a special a special investigator for the commonwealth attorney's office since your office we when I was an assistant commonwealth attorney prosecuting cases and I worked on a number of fairly large ones we seemed to get along just fine without them it would be I see it would be a nice thing to have I don't disagree with you certainly anyone

[02:09:20] any additional support staff to coordinate things would be great unfortunately this is a pretty you know this is a budget year that I continue to look for ways to save money and so me personally I'm not going to support that one but I will tell you I do have a couple of questions it does seem to me from my outside observation from talking with many of your internal folks that you definitely need some administrative support the unfortunately a number of your requests actually all of your request fall right at the end of our 87 cents um i think i'm inclined to support um some of your

[02:09:55] admin staff perhaps not all um i it looks like you would prefer a paralegal or the one paralegal request over the legal services assistance which you are asking for free um and i get it i know that the rules of discovery have changed a bit over the since um just over in the last couple of years largely because of some of the rules that have changed in richmond and so i want to verify something yes they're already here they're temporaries i'm asking them to be made permanent what's or what's temporary the individuals that you just mentioned they're the three

[02:10:30] there's just the three okay then i'm happy to support those three um i think that's i think that's right we did make those temporary now that that reminds me so i'm happy to support those within within the budget um it's a big resource request i think supervisor turner kind of saw that It is a big resource request, so I think if that's, I know you have different priorities, but I am inclined to support the assistance, the three assistance that are being requested, and perhaps maybe the paralegal.

[02:11:01] Can I ask one question? Sure. You can answer it. You can ask him, but he won't have time to answer it. Please answer anything I said. The special grand jury is a different thing, and it is a way of a different form of protection. Would you agree with that?

[02:11:17] I do, but we don't have any answer. That's the part that he did. Let me make a statement. Yeah, that you can do that. Special grand jury is a different form of protection. And in the area where we are right now, with fentanyl, with human trafficking, I believe it's absolutely needed for purposes of attacking that issue.

[02:11:42] All right, thank you. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall, and nice to meet you, Mr. Anderson. Thank you. So would you say just from your comment to Supervisor Kirshner that the investigators are a priority over some of the other, like I see that it's a higher priority, it's priority one.

[02:12:03] I mean, I'm not as much into priority four and five, but I'm just trying to figure out, you know, your office has doubled its expenditures since FY 2022 from five to 10 million.

[02:12:18] So I'm not inclined to give all of these resource requests, but it sounds like you really want the investigators because it sounds like your cases have changed. So I'm trying to understand, you know, your needs.

[02:12:34] Okay, my needs are based on the fact that we've got a position in this office that we're trying more cases. Right. Okay, and we're trying those cases maybe differently, a little differently, which goes to the issue of a special grand jury, which goes to the issue of making sure that we send them out.

[02:12:55] If we don't have something, maybe it was our mistake, go get it, for purposes of trial preparation. So that's why, and the reason I feel strongly about it is because when we had it the first time and we went forward with that case, That person had to travel up and down all through the United States, up and down the East Coast, pulling witnesses together.

[02:13:18] I could never get that. And I understand why I couldn't get that from a sitting police chief or sheriff. They just don't have people. They don't have the time, which is why we went to the Board of Supervisors to get it in the first place. But that person worked like a charm.

[02:13:36] It did. It pulled these cases together. And when that case was done, we had others for them to be able to do the same thing. Okay, and you need two, right, two investigators? Yes. Okay, so the legal services assistant, I see in some places you're asking for three and some places two.

[02:13:55] Which one is it? Is it two? It is three. There is a replacement page to correct that typo. Okay, so it's three. So what I read is that you have two temporary positions right now on the LSA and you have five regular LSA positions.

[02:14:13] Correct. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry, wait. No, it's three. No, I read that he had two temporary positions. Two or what? Is it two? That you have seven total. Yes. Yeah, he has seven total. Five full-time and two temporary, right?

[02:14:31] Right. Seven total. Okay, but you're asking for three. Oh, good, okay. Kim can answer this question better than me. Okay, thanks, Kim. I'm so sorry. We do have three temporary allotted, but only two are populated currently.

[02:14:48] Oh, okay. So you have seven right now, two temporary, five full-time. Correct, correct, and we would like to fill that third one as well. Okay, but you don't have that person right now. We don't, no. Not at the current time. Okay.

[02:15:04] Okay, thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Anderson. Thank you. Similar to Mr. Turner, I don't necessarily want to have a philosophical discussion, and I used to say that to your predecessor, and we had some exchanges up here which indicated a difference in philosophy, and I think now with you, it's the other way around, and I'm probably more aligned with where you're going with the office.

[02:15:31] But I also said to your predecessor and to other constitutional officers in their first year that I struggle when in the first year somebody comes in with a big resource request because to me it takes time to figure out, I mean, two months into this job, I didn't even know where anything was, let alone figure out how I need to do it.

[02:15:48] Now, you're a little different because you did it previously, and you knew what worked. So I'm inclined to support some of the positions. I'm not qualified to make a judgment on whether it's good or bad that you have an investigator, but you're the Commonwealth attorney, and you were duly elected, and you think that that's how you want to operate, so I'm not going to second-guess that.

[02:16:09] But I think there's 11 vacancies in the office currently. That's fact. They're all lawyers. What's that? They're all attorney positions. They're all attorneys. So what I was going to ask, is there any possibility to simply reconstitute some of those positions and change your staffing so that some of those attorney positions could be converted into the other positions that you need, at least for this year, rather than us giving you more money and taking it from the taxpayers for things that I doubt are even going to get filled within the fiscal year?

[02:16:42] That was going to be my question, too. My understanding is the answer to that question is yes. The answer to that question is yes. Sorry? Yes, you can reclassify positions. So, perhaps, as a way forward, I'm just throwing something out there, at least for me, I would be inclined to support the investigator positions and the docket manager.

[02:17:04] I think you made a really strong case for that. But maybe we could look at reclassifying some of the other positions to cover the rest of these things for this year and then revisit where things are and have a conversation with us. We do budget development and finance committee, so we don't have to just walk in on this day and suddenly be making these judgments.

[02:17:25] so I'd be happy to have you in the finance committee and talk through some of these things. It may be difficult to do something like that on the fly. I understand that. So I could also suggest that maybe there's an opportunity for the finance staff to work with the Commonwealth Attorney on maybe how to do that for this year.

[02:17:42] That's where I would prefer to go, speaking at least for one of nine. If you're amenable to that. Yes, I am. That was exactly going to be my, among others, that was exactly going to be my suggestion. Ms. Prixman? Thank you, Madam Chair. Staff, where are the two investigators in the summary of resource requests?

[02:18:02] I'm not finding them. It should be the first page, and that would be R41. No, no, I mean from R2 to R6. Where are they in the tax rate?

[02:18:31] Okay, all right, all right. You have one investigator right now, correct? And so adding two investigators would be three investigators. No, one more. For two. We're asking for three initially.

[02:18:51] Three additional investigators? It says two. The total investigators would be three, so the answer is two. Right. Right. That's what I said. Yeah. I'm sorry. How many folks have been let go from the office since you were elected? One. Not let go. Found a job with the U.S. government agency. There's been one person that left.

[02:19:15] One person left? There has been one person that left in the last two months. How many people have you let go? Have I fired? Yeah. From the previous administration, 13 attorneys. 13 attorneys, okay. And you have 11 vacancies now, all attorneys.

[02:19:34] Correct. They are, let me make sure everybody understands it, that they are lower grade. There's two ACA, I'm sorry, two ACA 3s, five ACA 2s, and four ACA 1. That's okay, that's okay. I just wanted the top line.

[02:19:49] Well, these are smaller. We had approved a lot of positions in the previous budget years. Have the positions that were approved last year and the year before been filled? I think there were some victim's assistance positions and those sorts of things. Have they been filled? The only unfilled positions at this point in time are those attorneys.

[02:20:07] Just the attorneys. Okay. All right. And we're in the process to try to fill them. Okay. I'm confused by the special grand jury position. Is that an LSA or is that an investigator? No, that's an investigator. it would help tie the case together so attorneys could take it. Okay, so that's an investigator.

[02:20:27] The office assistant, there was nothing about IT in the description in here, but you're saying the office assistant would be doing IT? The office assistant would be helping us with the transfer over to Motorola. Transferring over to Motorola means that they can get evidence off, you can get evidence off the cloud. That's what we're talking about. Okay, and that's not in place yet. And then the body-worn camera folks that we we gave a lot of positions for the body-worn camera viewing are those positions filled and being used to what they were called for the only positions that are not filled right now our attorneys

[02:21:04] positions okay not quite the question I asked but okay well the answer then is no there's none of those positions unfilled at this point the only positions unfilled attorneys so mr. Anderson welcome to the room thank you very much um I think these are hard discussions because none of these positions sit in a silo. So you don't want to have philosophical discussions. That is true.

[02:21:29] But the positions don't sit in a silo. And when your predecessor was here, the accusations is that she was getting positions filled that she didn't need because she wasn't prosecuting. But the positions were still filled. So what you're basically saying is you need positions filled because you are doing more prosecuting. But we filled positions already. So whether or not you know she was prosecuting enough or not the positions were still filled this is a huge request for your first time here if i heard mr clemens right and i may not have heard him right his last

[02:22:09] position that we just said for him was because he wanted to have some it support for you for the sheriff for everybody so i don't believe that i will be supporting the assistant to the chief because what we just supported for mr clemens from what i heard him saying if i i'll go back can check and make sure I heard him right, is that he wants to kind of use that position to share with all the departments he named. And so I think that to do the assistant to the chief would be repetitive. And so I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to make a motion to remove that. I was going to ask the exact same question

[02:22:44] and make the exact same suggestion that Mr. Laterno did, which means we've been around each other for too long, evidently at this point, and it's hard to do here, right? It's hard to say to do that here. We have to put more time in it than we can do at this moment, but to look at the positions of some of those attorneys, reclassify them for some of the things you might be asking for right now. The legal assistance, you have two that are temporary. Do you know the delta amount of

[02:23:23] money that you're paying temporary assistance that you would need to pay permanent assistance? Andrew might be able to answer. You mean the difference between the temporary pay and the money were permanent? Yes, sir. Can you answer that? They are classified as grade 115 but long-term temporary positions.

[02:23:43] Well, I'm only asking because I guess I'm asking that you subtract the amount that they're being paid now from the amount you're asking for since we're already paying for the temporaries right now. What is that delta? Temporary positions are paid out of department laps or vacancy savings, so there is no allocated budget for temporary positions.

[02:24:02] Okay, I get that, but they're still being paid from something. I mean, money's coming from some places. Right, they're coming from the department's personnel budget, and the only difference between a temporary and regular position would be the cost of Virginia Retirement System. Okay, so then now I think I'm even more confused, and I don't have time to go over it right now.

[02:24:22] So, Supervisors, let me ask this with Mr. Anderson, because he's agreed that we can maybe look at reclassifying some of these. And so it's hard to do this right now. It's not even fair to you to try to do it all right now. I will make a motion for one thing, but do you want to, Mr. Anderson and colleagues, to table the rest of the discussion until we can?

[02:24:47] Because I don't know how to do this. If we're going to reclassify some things, I have no idea how to do this or if it can't even be done by the time we get finished with the budget. I'm not sure how to do this. If the intent of the board is to reduce certain positions out of the budget with the encouragement that the commonwealth's attorney seek reclassifications for positions, that is something that can be done internally between the HR department.

[02:25:17] But for purposes of the budget, the motion would just be to remove these specific positions and then we would handle the re-classifications internally. Well, I don't particularly like doing it like this, but that's the process. That's the process.

[02:25:32] So, supervisors, I'm going to make a motion to remove the assistant to the chief position in its entirety for a savings that, I think that savings, is that savings $88,000?

[02:25:48] Yes. For a savings of $88,000. All right. I don't need to be the dead horse. I'm removing that one because it sounds like the position we just approved of Mr. Clemons will cover a lot of what you're, at least that's what he said, cover a lot of what you're asking for.

[02:26:07] I understand needing IT support. I am the least IT-savvy person you'll ever meet. But if we have someone that can do kind of multiple departments, he mentioned your department, he mentioned the sheriff's department, for that very purpose, I'm going to use it for that.

[02:26:24] Any other discussion on that motion? No? Okay. All in favor of that, motion please say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801. Okay, any other motion? Mr. Letourneau.

[02:26:40] Yeah, I would like to see the Reef classification encompass the paralegal and legal services positions as well. But I am cognizant of trying to have some dialogue over this. So, you know, I would personally suggest, although I think Megan's right, we could just take them out.

[02:26:59] I think to give maybe the Commonwealth attorney a little bit of time to think about it, perhaps we could table the rest of the discussion. Have him come back and make those motions at that time. I will fully warn, but with the encouragement of maybe seeing what can be done in a reclassification and having some additional dialogue.

[02:27:17] So just give me a second so I can look at this, because that just makes, I want to give him some time, too, to be honest. I think that's only correct and right to do that. Trying to see my schedule.

[02:27:35] Mr. Anderson, are you going to be available through our entire budget process? Do you plan on going out of town, doing anything else? Are you going to be around? I'll be available. You'll be available. Mr. LaTurna, would you like to make a motion?

[02:27:53] Yeah, I'll just move that we table further discussion of the Commonwealth Attorneys. Second. And I will second that. And there's no discussion on the motion to table. We will have you back. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will pass 801.

[02:28:11] Thank you, sir. Supervisor, let's do one more office before we take a break. Let's do the Sheriff's Office. Yeah, it's going to take a long time. i know it well where did i go whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa we can't even do anything one two three we just lost the forum oh one two three four five you know what i'm gonna wait

[02:28:47] anyway though because she don't want to do this twice and while i will wait um mr chapman i would sheriff chapman i would say to you in public today what i said to you in private which is not private but i said just to you which is um i know you were um out of out of town for i guess you've been three weeks or something, you've been gone for a while, and while this tragedy happened, your department responded swiftly and admirably to include that very first night, people in your department had to get out of

[02:29:24] calm to a scene at 2.30 in the morning because they escorted the body of Firefighter Brown because in that world, the body is never not escorted, And so they got up that night and did that. And every place I have been, and I've been to a lot of different events, there have been sheriff deputies there.

[02:29:46] So I please extend our appreciation to your department as well during this very tough time for the county. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, we're just going to give it a second. Can we have a few more people walking back on this? Davis, before we keep going?

[02:30:02] I do want to know why you left the favorite person of mine in your office back there on the benches. I'm not quite sure why he wasn't allowed to come up, but okay. Sorry, Chris. Chris is like, we talk every day.

[02:30:22] Am I not the favorite? If you had have been there, back there, I would set you the favorite, too.

[02:30:57] Okay. Very good. Here we go. You will find, supervisors, you will find the sheriff's budget information on page R56, I'm sorry, R-56 to R-60 under description of resource request and under budget narrative whoa, it's page 2 to 42 so big area there Sheriff Chapman, we're ready when you are Madam Chair, thank you very much I'm here with Lieutenant Colonel Chris Sawyer Lieutenant Colonel Bob Mosier Major Sliden and study ship our financial guru and so appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight

[02:31:36] also So welcome, Supervisor Tacroni, to the board. Appreciate you being here. Before I begin, I'd like tonight's presentation, I'd like to publicly express on behalf of Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, my heartfelt condolences to Laura Brown for the loss of her husband, a firefighter, Trevor Brown, and to the Brown children for the loss of their father.

[02:31:58] It was an honor for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office and our surrounding law enforcement and fire rescue agencies to be an important part of today's celebration of life and for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office to have assisted at the scene of the house explosion where Trevor lost his life working with Loudoun County Fire and Rescue, the security area, provide safe passage for a myriad of activities required to address that tragedy that evening and to help with the ongoing investigation, as you had mentioned, Chair Randall.

[02:32:27] As first responders, we all share a common bond, and we are always aware that any one of us can lose our life while protecting others. The loss of Trevor on February 16th is a stark reminder of the dangerous first responders face every single day and how precious and delicate life is.

[02:32:44] Today's celebration of Trevor's life was a remarkable event. The organization, the procession, the presentations, and the sincere remarks. It was certainly a fitting tribute to our first responder colleague who made the ultimate sacrifice in protecting our community. We will be eternally grateful for that sacrifice and will ensure that we do whatever is needed to help the Brown family work through this awful tragedy.

[02:33:06] Our thoughts and prayers are with the Brown family during this very difficult time. Well said. Thank you. Well said. As we get on to the budget, again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to address the requests that we have coming up for the fiscal year. Every one of these requests will reflect the ever-increasing challenges and complexities that we face in law enforcement, the high expectations of the residents and businesses of Loudoun County, and our desire to provide the best service possible to everyone in Loudoun County.

[02:33:37] I want to remind the board that when it comes to personnel, Loudoun County Sheriff's Office is the second largest agency in the county and one of the most essential to its citizens serving 24 hours a day. Yet we're also less than 5% of the county's annual operating budget and less than 3% when capital costs are included.

[02:33:55] This year's request for new personnel focuses on both sworn personnel, including 14 additional patrol deputies, as well as a much-needed addition of expert and administrative staff to keep our operations successful. But I want to begin with positions that were in our original budget request and not submitted.

[02:34:16] As part of the proposed budget, our request for four more school resource officer deputies and one additional SRO sergeant. Why did we request this? We did that because of the need for full-time, highly trained, specialized SROs in the 14 middle and 16 high schools covered by the Lawton County Sheriff's Office.

[02:34:36] Our demands are greater than ever because annual sick leave, family leave, and personal emergencies need to be factored into all staffing requirements, including those of our school resource officers, because their SRO positions cannot readily be backfilled by other deputies doing other work. Because we need floaters to cover our high schools and middle schools, when assigned SROs cannot be there on a given day. In the last school year, for example, there were 517 incidents of a school without an SRO for a full day. When that happens at a high

[02:35:13] school, we try to cover with a school resource officer from a middle school, but this is neither ideal nor sustainable. With our collective commitment to school and student safety, I'm convinced that we must and can do better and hope you will add these positions on a future budget cycle.

[02:35:31] Now, briefly, our resource request. First request in the packet you'll see is for two crossing guard positions. These requests are due to Loudoun County Public Schools adding walking zones to the Moorfield Station Elementary School and Elaine Thompson Elementary School.

[02:35:49] Funding crossing guard positions significantly reduces the overall expenses related to school crossing as any unfunded positions results in overtime expenses for our deputies as each designated crossing guard is required to be staffed. Our first departmental priority request is for law enforcement, our first request other than that is for a law enforcement wellness coordinator. This position mirrors the behavioral health coordinator position currently at fire and Rescue, and is designed to enhance the overall wellness of our staff. Deputies dispatches our

[02:36:27] civilian staff and their families are often exposed to traumatic incidents, and this position will help provide coaching, support, and resources to our staff. You got it. You got it. Fine. You absolutely got that one. Not finished yet. We're reminded again today of the critical importance of mental health services for first responders. This position would also work together with our peer support team, providing licensed clinical oversight of our peer support team. Improving the wellness services of law enforcement personnel and staff has been identified as a critical component at the local, regional, state, and national levels, and we look forward to this

[02:37:02] position continuing to enhance the wellness programs within our sheriff's office. Our next request is related to intelligence, data, and systems. This request includes three critical components, an intelligence manager, I'm sorry, manager, and two intelligence analysts, a systems manager, and a crime analyst. The work of law enforcement is evolving quickly and becoming increasingly complex. Many investigations require significant use of forensic technology, analysis of DNA, cutting-edge crypto and currency and Bitcoin transactions, cell phone and other

[02:37:41] computer, and social media analysis. We cannot afford to be reactive, so it is imperative that we increase both our intelligence and analytical capabilities. Intelligence analysts differ from crime analysts in that they focus primarily on trends, threats, and information on the horizon, excuse me, looking forward on proactive and preventive investigations. The intelligence manner would bring together our crime analysts and intelligence analysts under one roof to ensure coordination and consistency of intelligence sharing both internally and with the community. These positions also have a heavy reliance on data and information systems,

[02:38:20] and this request includes a systems manager to handle the extremely heavy workload systems management load that supports the work we do. For reference, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office currently has one systems manager with a workload that has grown from managing nine systems in 2015 to managing 37 today. This workload is unsustainable as we continue to grow as an organization both in size and capability and a second systems manager is critical to our operations. Finally, the intelligence manager and analysis positions we're requesting were also

[02:39:00] recommended in the study by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Our next request is titled Managerial and Administrative Support. This includes a policy and accreditation manager, a human resource manager, and a training coordinator. Two of these positions we asked last year, but they didn't make it to the final approved budget. All three of these positions will have a significant impact on our organization. The policy and accreditation management position is critical need for us as we continue to develop as a professional organization.

[02:39:34] We are currently accredited through the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission, Vilepsy, and the Virginia Board of Local and Regional Jails and are seeking accreditation for our Emergency Communications Center and additional accreditation through the American Correctional Association for Adult Detention Center. These accreditations require showing proof of compliance with hundreds of standards involving industry standards and best practices. We also actively manage over 400 policies and procedures, ensuring they are

[02:40:09] continuously revised and updated. This is an incredible amount of work, and it is currently accomplished by a team of people as a collateral duty to their regular assignments. Having a dedicated person to oversee these accreditations and policy management processes is vital. As our agency has grown, our human resource needs have also grown. We currently have only two eight human resource liaisons who handle all the HR functions for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, nearly 900 people. This human resource manager position would assist with coordinating the workload

[02:40:46] of our human resource liaisons and assist with the coordination of the Loudoun County Sheriff's office in the county's Department of Human Resources. The final position in this group is a training coordinator. Like the other positions, our training section has had one training coordinator for many years that is charged with tracking the training needs and certifications for the entire agency. This workload is too great for one position to handle, so supervisors within the training section have to take on some of the workload just to keep up. An additional training coordinator would

[02:41:23] allow us to better manage our training and certification needs. The last request in the proposed budget is for 15 field deputy positions, and it is a critical one. While the International Association Chiefs of Police report that the Board of Supervisors indicated a need for 79 additional deputies, we have been very judicious in requesting new positions and have based these on actual and anticipated workload, not simply on using the numbers from the IACP report. We have been continually monitoring the workload of our deputies to ensure that our response times

[02:41:58] are competitive and our deputies have sufficient time for crime prevention activities such as proactive patrols. Based upon our actual workload over the past year, we are currently 14 field deputy positions short, which we have documented for county staff in our data and service analysis.

[02:42:19] As Loudoun County continues to grow, this workload will grow too, so funding these positions is critical to our ability to respond effectively to the expectations and the needs of the community. While the positions I just discussed are the only ones programmed into the budget, and I've already addressed the SROs, I would also want to highlight the other Latin County Sheriff's Office that were not included in the proposed budget as they are still vital to our operations. First, an additional customer service assistant for our headquarters as our lobby services have been steadily increasing and the workload is now greater than ever.

[02:42:58] Second, a finance account assistant for similar reasons as the workload in our finance unit has increased significantly over time. Third, for two deputies to assist with the virtual court documents at the adult detention center where inmates are having court hearings virtually and a staff is needed to move the inmates to the hearing rooms, accompany them during the hearing, and move them back and also move them back.

[02:43:22] While efficient for the legal system, the growing use of virtual appearances also creates additional labor needs. Finally, an inmate programs assistant also for adult detention center to assist with overseeing the 300 active volunteers at the ADC, screening both potential programs and volunteers as well as recruiting and screening inmates for the program participation.

[02:43:45] We are constantly looking for additional programs and volunteers to assist with the programs in the adult detention center, but we need additional staff personnel to assist with these functions. We're asking that many of these positions be funded as possible in the upcoming fiscal year, and we'd be pleased to answer your questions.

[02:44:05] I realize this is a tall order this year, but we really do find it necessary for many of these positions to keep the level of service to the citizens that we provide to the optimum. Thank you.

[02:44:21] Thank you, Sheriff Chapman. Thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for being here, Sheriff Chapman. I appreciate it. I have some questions about the 14 deputy positions, and I'm looking at the language in the item here in the budget.

[02:44:38] And the thing I'm stuck on is that the IACP report, as I read this, specified that you were currently at a 64% obligated time in 22. Is that accurate? Does that sound right? Oh, but yes.

[02:44:54] Yeah, the IACP report had that as a much higher number. At 64% obligated. Okay, well, if it's 64% obligated, that tells me then 36% of that time is proactive. And in the bullet right below that, it says industry best practices says that proactive time between 30 and 40 percent is ideal.

[02:45:13] So in 2022, if you were at 64 percent obligated, that means you were at 36 proactive and 30 to 40 is the ideal. I'm missing something. Yes, sir. So the ICP's recommended methodology is what we call 30-30-30-10, 30% obligated, 30% available for proactive patrol, 30% administrative, and 10% personal and break, because no one can work a 12-hour shift without, obviously, meal breaks and restrooms and things like that.

[02:45:40] The administrative workload is what's missing from there, and our staff are right at that 30% administrative workload time. So what that means is that's all the time writing reports. That's a significant chunk of it. Attending roll calls, you know, turning in physical paperwork at the end of shift and other functions like that, processing evidence, packaging, things like that.

[02:46:02] So there's a significant workload, but 30% of their time is spent on that. So when you're obligated workload, which obligated is only the time dedicated to responding to calls for service, when that obligated workload is that high, there literally is no other time that's available for those things.

[02:46:20] And that's where it is, right? So what's the proactive time that's available right now? - Yeah, so our analysis, so we continue to do this since the ICP report, so I wouldn't use that 64% number anymore. So we are, as we continue to work and look at these numbers, we are hovering in about the probably 40% off the top of my head, looking at all shifts.

[02:46:44] - Okay, really quick, 'cause I'm running out of time. My understanding is you've got 30 positions still open, You hired two last year. Eighteen only became available to recruit for on one January. But there's still a number of open positions.

[02:47:01] So my question is, can we focus on the open positions and fill in those over this budget cycle and come back with a request down the road? Yeah, so I'll start this in Major Schleiden if he wants to add anything else about our employment services section.

[02:47:17] So we always have deputy positions in what I call in churn, and that's based on the natural, you know, kind of turnover through the agency, which is actually very low. Our turnover this past year was about 6.5%. So it's extremely low, but 6.5% of, you know, 850 people, close to 900 people, is a large number.

[02:47:38] Those positions are constantly turning over. And so, you know, of the positions that were filled, we filled the vast majority of them, but there's other positions that are coming in. We need those for our employment services section to be able to issue conditional job offers to do the background investigation process.

[02:47:56] The other thing that's significant there is that when we hire a field deputy, you know, for example, since we're talking about field, we don't see them actually on patrol by themselves serving and, you know, impacting the workload for at least a year, and that's post-hire.

[02:48:11] So by the time you add the advertisement, the background investigation process and everything else, we use about an 18-month window for a position to be fully staffed. So we have the actual vacant positions, but then we've got positions that are filled with a person. They're just not a fully certified and trained person on the street yet.

[02:48:29] Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mr. DeTerno. Thank you. Thank you, Sheriff Chapman. Thank you for all the work the Sheriff's Office has done to help support the community in the last couple weeks, especially and, of course, on an ongoing basis. Let me kind of dive back into that discussion more about the pace of hiring.

[02:48:45] So let's not talk about the churn positions because, as you said, that's kind of – there were 36 new positions added last year, of which 11, I believe, are still technically vacant. And then there were 18 additional made available January 1.

[02:49:01] So I'm just thinking through what is a realistic actual pace of hire in a fiscal year because that's a pretty significant backlog. And then if we add 14 on top of that, I get what you're saying. You want to have a pipeline, but I'm just questioning how many people can you physically actually hire and bring in going through the background checks and all the things you have to do in a given year?

[02:49:25] Sure. So again, I'll start this in major slide, and if you want to come in. So our employment services section is staffed very well, and they do a ton of work. So specifically, last year, we hired 98 people. 67 of those were sworn personnel.

[02:49:41] Now, obviously, not all of those are filled. I believe it was 40 for field. So we have a significant throughput that we can do for these positions. The other thing I would just say is that the positions that are filled, it does get a little bit tricky as to which specific positions are filled. So the position numbers that were granted for those positions may or may not be filled, but other positions are.

[02:50:02] So it's a little complex. Yeah. Before you jump in, so one of the things I kind of proposed was to see if we could do, like we did last year, kind of split these up between the fiscal year. It sounds like you were amenable to that.

[02:50:17] In this case, it would be seven that we would hire, becoming available January 1, 2025. Yes, fiscal year, calendar year. There would be some savings there, a couple hundred thousand. But the capital expenditure still occurs in the fiscal year, so that is not a savings.

[02:50:36] But it sounds like that might be at least one way to kind of get at this. That's reasonable? We would be amenable to that, sure. Okay. Anything else you wanted to add on the hiring capacity? I was just going to say that right now we have nine background investigators that are constantly assigned cases, just less than 30 cases per investigator for the year, and two of those are temporary part-time positions, but they are going through these cases at a rapid pace to ensure that we have quality candidates that we're bringing in.

[02:51:06] Okay. On the managerial and administrative support, which are the two that were part of last year? There are three in here total. Which two were part of last year's request that we didn't end up funding? These were taken out. It was an intel manager, accreditation manager, customer service specialist, and TV court deputies that did not make to the final cut last year.

[02:51:28] So wait, but of the three you're asking for this year, which are policy, accreditation, HR, and training coordinator, so which ones were part of last year's request of these three? Well, we know for sure the policy and accreditation manager.

[02:51:48] I can't speak on the other. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Paterno. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Sheriff, I'd like to extend to you my thanks and appreciation for all the hard work your team and your deputies do every day.

[02:52:07] On the SRO request that didn't make it into the prepared budget, Do you consider those positions to be higher priority than any of the other positions you have requested?

[02:52:23] Thank you for that question. They're separate, and the requirements are different. School resource officer positions are specialized positions and takes some significant training. The field deputies that we ask for are really just to augment the field as first responders.

[02:52:39] We're short on that, and we want to make sure that we're getting our first responders out there to handle the calls. So separate and aside, it's hard for me to say one is a priority over the other, but we certainly would like all of those positions. Do you have a cost estimate, and I'm sorry if I missed it, on your SRO request?

[02:53:02] I believe it was about $1.6 million, is that? Yeah, just a little bit over $1.6 million for that, for the five positions. All right. Okay. Thank you very much. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall, and thank you, Sheriff Chapman.

[02:53:19] So the SROs will be in FY26? Is that because I don't see it here at all in our document? No, it was one of the requests that we had started with and in the final cut with the budget proposal, it did not make it. Okay, so it will be next year.

[02:53:36] Okay. Do you know if any of the deputies that you're requesting will be in Western Loudoun? I was meeting with one of the mayors, and he mentioned there just aren't enough deputies out in Western Loudoun. Yes, so thank you for the question.

[02:53:52] So of the 14 deputy positions, we do actually have deputies assigned to each of the four service areas. So our service areas don't specifically align to the board member districts or things like that. We have four. The Eastern Loudoun Station, which covers primarily Sterling and Algonquian areas.

[02:54:10] ashburn station um you know which includes you know lansdown ashburn that area dola south station which includes south south riding stone ridge aldi that area and then western loudon which is um simplistically pretty much almost everything west of 15. there is some other parts of dull south station that goes up west of 15 but uh but primarily uh the western line station so each one of those service areas would get a deputy with this request okay an additional deputy yes okay um so the three um positions that supervisor letourner was just talking about it sounds like you have eight human resource liaisons already why do you uh need another one why do you need a

[02:54:50] manager so i can i can start with this a major slide and can as well so um so we don't have eight uh hr liaisons we have we have two hr liaisons um and a human resources special programs assistant um and these folks are incredibly incredibly busy handling the the uh the workload of of the entire agency so obviously that includes the hiring and everything we just talked about but we also have all the leaves um and you know family leave you know from fmla to paid family leave um uh you know different types of you know workers compensation things so unfortunately

[02:55:26] deputies get injured at a fairly rapid basis so there's a significant amount of workload that comes through there those positions actually report up to the captain of the administrative and technical services division and there's no there's no supervisor buffer there so a civilian manager position that specializes in hr would be helpful to be able to better handle the workload that's there balance the duties between the people that are there and assist with the more complex things as they coordinate with the department of human resources okay any chance you can combine

[02:55:59] I see the training coordinator does certification needs, and then you have this policy and accreditation manager that does certifications as well. Any chance you can combine those two into one or have them share both responsibilities?

[02:56:16] Yeah, so my answer would be no, unfortunately, on that. Our training volume is just exhaustive because the training coordinator position does all the handling all the training requests. So entering deputies and people, it's not even just the certifications and things like that.

[02:56:35] Deputies are attending and required to attend and maintain many, many different certifications that are there. The policy and accreditation workload, it's actually more than one person's likely workload as it is with over 400 policies that some are you know some are highly critical high liability policies that require constant review other ones are on a more you know annual cycle for review and things like that but then to add the accreditation on top of that which talks about you know we talk about the proofs of compliance and and things like that but we actually have to show proofs of compliance for hundreds of standards year over year over year so it's literally thousands it's pulling thousands

[02:57:14] of of records to be able to show those you know proofs of compliance with the standards so those two workloads are are pretty much separate and aside okay thank you thank you mr crony miss uh mr kirchner thank you madam chair thank you sheriff chapman congratulations on your re-election thanks to all your staff all the hard work you do you guys do tremendous work and i think today only highlights how critical our first responders are the work they do and sometimes how we take you for granted so um i don't i'm not going to have any requests to remove anything i i am glad that and i'm glad you're working with us on this that uh there will be a motion i think made to

[02:57:53] change take some of the field deputy positions and perhaps fund them part way through the year again helps tax savings a little bit here and we're looking for everything we can get i know we talked a little bit about the sro i think you said three or four positions you that I really originally asked, I'm assuming that the field deputies kind of outranked those requests, but in large part, if we don't fund those, those will come back as one of your top priorities next year.

[02:58:21] Is that right? Yes, that's correct. That's correct. Okay, good. I think from a personal perspective, I think if they had been in there, you know, you'd exchange it for something else, you know, I know it was a request and the administrator and you guys worked together to come up with, to fit within the guidance.

[02:58:38] I think those are really critical. I think the more SROs we can get, quite frankly, in schools to ensure that we have them there on a regular basis is probably pretty important for the security of our children in this community. So I would certainly long-term be supportive of that.

[02:58:56] I think that's all I have to say, but thanks, guys, for all the hard work. Thank you. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much for the presentation. I think that we talked probably enough over the fact that there were 36 positions allocated last year and only seven have been filled.

[02:59:18] So I do think that we need to back off of the adding new positions right now. I was curious, though, the intelligence data systems, five FTEs, come in as a priority, too, over the positions that you wanted last year.

[02:59:38] So can you talk to me a little bit about why we're looking at a million for five FTEs and intelligence data and systems? Sure, I can take that. So this is also, you know, like the sheriff said, out of the ICP report and the recommendations that are there. Okay. So there is just a wealth of things that we could be doing as an agency to protect the people of Loudoun County that we just do not have the bandwidth to be able to do from an intelligence perspective.

[03:00:06] So included in this, there's kind of three things that are there. There's the intelligence analyst and manager. That is a capability for us to be able to be proactive, preventative, especially in threats cases, things like that, looking at forward-looking intelligence that our crime analysts do not have the ability to do.

[03:00:25] Our crime analysts right now are extremely, I would say, overwhelmed and overworked. That's why we have at least one more in there. Just looking specifically at the crimes that have occurred and the things that we can do to help find solvability for those crimes, that to be forward-looking, you know, at trends and things like that, they just don't have the ability to do. Okay. And that's good that the turnover rate is low. I also believe the IEC report called out a need for more diversity and perhaps more women in your command staff that

[03:00:57] aren't administrative assistants. How are we doing on that? So I've got the data here. So we are, We currently have 13.4% of our personnel, our sworn personnel, our women, which is slightly above the national average, which is about 12%.

[03:01:19] And in command staff? So our leadership, our sheriff's office leadership, and that is basically all supervisory positions, we are right about 10%, which again, national average there is about 3%.

[03:01:36] So we are – that's an area we're continuing to work on, but we are doing pretty well there. Okay. And I know you guys hate it when we ask this, but between – and I know priority three is the managerial administrative support. Priority two is the intelligence and data systems.

[03:01:53] If you had to have fewer, maybe, how would you pare that down? So these are hard, and I don't – because they're just – they're completely different.

[03:02:08] They're apples and oranges. you know one of their focuses this year was on the support staff that really is the backbone that makes the sheriff's office work because the team that we have currently is I mean they're an incredible team but they are they're just not enough of them they're overworked as an agency we've grown significantly and our support staff has has stayed pretty stagnant in numbers so they're I mean they are both critical needs I would have a very hard time time prioritizing those. I'm sorry. Thank you. So my only chastisement was what has taken you

[03:02:45] all so long to get the behavioral health person. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry when you called me in your office and told me that was coming up. I did a dance. Law enforcement has more deaths by suicide than they do line of duty deaths. It's gotten so bad that there's actually a suicide awareness day for law enforcement that's September 26 and so that position is is so needed for all the reasons that we've we've talked about it's just you know that even when you're trained the human brains only only me to see so much or deal with so

[03:03:20] much at one time and the the the trauma and the secondary trauma from from this position from these positions is very serious and as well as law enforcement also has much high numbers of domestic violence and all those types of things for all these same reasons, and so I am thrilled that that position is there.

[03:03:42] I'm a little sad that the volunteer inmate services is not there because I still do hear people say to me, you know, in fact, fairly regularly, I try to go to the jail to volunteer, but no one got back to me or no one came back because I think it's just, you know, there's a lot of organizations and people who would do it, but it's hard to, because you've got to process everybody through.

[03:04:07] Not everybody can just walk into the jail, of course, but I think there's a lot more non-profit and help out there if they could just get themselves through the system in the jail. I know the Loudoun Coalition Women and Girls tried to do that for a long time for the female inmates and ended up actually never happening.

[03:04:27] And so that's unfortunate. I do think the questions about hiring practices, not hiring practices, but some people you can hire are sometimes a valid question. I have two questions. Some years ago, I guess it was 2015, there was a lot of talk about SRO officers in elementary schools.

[03:04:46] And since that time, we've never had that presented to us. It's always been SRO officers from building high school students. You know, if the sheriff comes to me and says, we need SROs in elementary schools, I'm going to say yes. But that's never happened. And I kind of want that on the record that it's never happened.

[03:05:04] And then the second question is, can you tell me why the 14, the field deputies, is your number four priority and not your number, well, I would say your number two priority, because I think the mental health, the behavioral health specialists should be your number one priority.

[03:05:22] I mean, I guess with the robustness that it was spoken about, I'm surprised that that priority itself was a little higher on the priority scale. And thank you. Well first madam chair, we would love to have SROs at every one of our elementary schools We know that it's very cost-prohibitive to do that because it's we have so many schools but we would certainly love to do that and And if you're looking for a request consider this a request for that for a future budget We're looking for it at the future budget. Yes. Okay related to the the priority of the field deputies

[03:06:01] Again, prioritizing these requests are so hard because they are so different. Our goal going into this year was really to look very heavily at the support structure. And the support structure in several of these positions, even on our internal priority, have not made it out over the past several years because of the other priorities of field deputies before.

[03:06:25] So, I mean, these are folks that are, frankly, they need help. and so that's why they're above the field deputies in this request, 'cause last year they were below. - Okay, okay, all right, thank you very much. Is there a motion, Mr. Letourneau?

[03:06:42] - Yeah, I move that we make seven of the field deputy positions a mid-year enhancement and therefore remove them from the first half of the fiscal year. I think the savings is somewhere around 400,000.

[03:06:57] - Second. Discussion on that motion, Mr. Letourneau? Yeah, just consistent with the question that I asked and the answer from the sheriff's office in light of the being realistic about exactly how much can be hired at one time, I think it's exceptionally unlikely that these 14 positions would be able to be filled prior to January anyway.

[03:07:20] So we are able to show a savings in the budget by making this move. All right, anybody else? Ms. Umstead? Are you looking for a comment on Supervisor Letourneau's motion? It's a motion on the table.

[03:07:36] I would support that. I second it. Ms. Bricksman? Oh, thank you. Sorry. If the lights are on, I'm going to call you. I thought Supervisor Tacroni had her light on. She did at one point.

[03:07:54] Actually, I don't think I can do a friendly amendment to this motion, so I think I need to make an alternate motion. You can try a friendly amendment. I would actually like to remove the 14 FTE field deputies from the 2025 budget. oh all together oh okay i have a feeling that won't be accepted and first of all that won't be accepted and secondly i'm not going to allow that as a friendly amendment because i think it's i think that's an opposite motion that's what i thought so yeah an alternative um no it's an opposite motion it's a motion on the table and now you're making an opposite motion i'm we're gonna have to vote on this one and it doesn't pass you can make that motion it is a totally

[03:08:33] opposite motion so i i'm not going to allow an opposite motion in the middle of this motion sorry okay all right and oh she doesn't need a second i'm not allowing the motion um so motion ma'am i'm sorry i'll make a motion you make a motion where are we right now we're still discussion we're we're discussing mr leternell's motion that i seconded and that everybody put the lights on for no good reason not you you had a good reason you had a good reason is your lights still on for the first for this motion yes ma'am i'm sorry i realized i didn't comment on that you did not

[03:09:12] comment on it um so i i won't be supporting this motion and madam chair a point of clarification if this motion passes i can i can still make my motion because it's a different motion you can make the motion if the motion passes you would make a motion to you make a motion to undo which is there but it won't be in the middle of an opposite motion okay i just wanted to clarify You can. You can. I just, opposite motions are, I've never done those.

[03:09:38] I understand. I didn't, yeah, great. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. You know, I would say on this motion, you know, Sheriff, you and I have had disagreements and tussles, even publicly, to be quite honest. One of the things I thought for a long time is you weren't bringing enough requests to us.

[03:09:58] I thought that, you know, that for whatever reason, there weren't enough requests brought to us. and I do think that whether or not, you know, you wanted the ICD report, I think it proves that you all were and have been short staffed, and even working as efficiently as possible, you know, because this is such a tough job and a high burnout job and all those things.

[03:10:22] I, you know, it's very rare that constitutional officers bring a request, and I don't say yes, because in my opinion, you don't bring enough. And so when you walk into Dulles Airport, there's a sign there that says, please come work for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.

[03:10:43] These are hard positions to hire, which is why I'm going to support Mr. Letourneau's motion, because I don't think they can be hired up. But I also am going to say, going forward, I'm going to encourage people, the constitutional officers, to ask for what you need so that you don't get this far behind.

[03:11:02] because it just, I mean, it's stressful and hard and, you know, it's hard to hire just because it's hard to hire right now across the board. It's hard to hire law enforcement right now, but I do think you need them, and I have thought you needed them for quite a while, to be quite honest.

[03:11:22] Mr. Turner, would you like to have a closing? I think we covered it. All right. The motion made by Mr. Turner, seconded by me, is to do seven of these mid-year. All in favor, please say aye.

[03:11:40] Opposed? You said aye. Okay. Okay. That motion will pass 801. Would I like to make another motion? Madam Chair, I think I'm going to save my motion for a different work session. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sounds good.

[03:11:58] There's another motion. Ms. Tachronius, would you like to make a motion? Yeah. I move that the Board of Supervisors remove one intelligence manager and one intelligence analyst. from the Sheriff's Department.

[03:12:14] Motion's been made. Is there a second to that motion? I think that motion will die for lack of a second. By the way, you have to watch your words. You said we're not doing a good job because we're not intelligent.

[03:12:31] You actually said that. Let's fix that terminology. I'm pretty sure you didn't mean that. Ms. Umshaw. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to make a motion to add four SROs to the sheriff's budget with funding to begin mid-year FY25 for $1.6 million.

[03:13:02] Motion made, so I second that motion. That motion will die for lack of a second. Any other motions on the dais? Seeing none. Thank you very much, gentlemen. And ma'am. Supervisors, let's take a 15-minute break.

[03:42:02] Okay, we're going to continue on, and we're going to continue on with Animal Services. With the Animal Services staff, please come down, please. Animal Services is found under the description of resource requirements on page R-36 through R-38, the Budget Narrative 2-2.

[03:42:24] Page 2. Good evening. Good evening. So I'm Nina Stivalu, the Department of Animal Services. You can find our department's narrative on 2-2, and you'll find our resource request starting on page R-36.

[03:42:41] This year, we have three requests in the proposed budget, a veterinary team consisting of one veterinarian and two veterinary technicians, one customer service specialist, and two humane law enforcement officers. While we did have positions in the CIP prior to the opening of our new facility in 2021, the last time that our department came before the board to request positions was 2019.

[03:43:05] We wanted to wait to obtain two consecutive years of data in our new facility before furthering a request to make sure we had the data to justify any asks we were going to be presenting. But now that we have that data, we have seen that the most dramatic increase in need has involved our veterinary staff, with more animals arriving in need of complex medical care than ever before, as well as our customer service team, who welcomes and supports more than 4,000 visitors through our doors every single month.

[03:43:31] The fast pace has also not been lost on our humane law enforcement team who are routinely working day shifts, followed by overnight on-call shifts, immediately followed by full day shifts. If granted, these positions will be of tremendous support to our staff and the human and animal community members that we serve every single day.

[03:43:51] I'm going to have my team introduce themselves to you, and then we are available for any questions you may have on our department, our operations, or our requests this year. Thank you. Hello, good evening. I'm Emily Hayes. I'm their budget analyst. Emily, you just work for everybody, don't you? I love the Constitutionals and public safety.

[03:44:08] Very good. I'm Angela Joyne. I'm the Administrative Manager. Chris Bursant. I'm the Chief of Humane Law Enforcement. Hi, I'm Melissa Hurd, Shelter Operations Manager. Wonderful. Thank you. Supervisors, questions, please put your lights on.

[03:44:28] Ms. Brooks? Nope. Okay, Mr. Kirshner. You all better be faster. Yeah, you caught me unawares. Sorry. You're faster. You know, your presentation was way too fast. I hadn't really settled in after dinner there. I'm inclined to support the veterinarian aspect just because of where it falls within the kind of breakdown of our budget.

[03:44:52] I do have some questions in terms of the new officers. How many do you currently have? In total, we have 11 officers. How long have you had 11? The last time we added an officer was 2015. And what is your case level grown since you've added an officer since 2015?

[03:45:11] Can you give me any sense of that? I can't give it to you since 2015. I can tell you over the past four years, the call volume has been relatively stable, but the call complexity has increased, resulting in an increased number of follow-up activities. So for example, previously, many of our calls would be in cases such as a dog running at large, which would require one or two follow-ups for an officer to go and try and seek that animal's location.

[03:45:34] We've seen a rise in more complex cruelty investigations, such as in the past month, we've had two alleged cases animal sexual assault, uh, animal felony cruelty. Um, we have a seizure right now involving, uh, abandoned, allegedly abandoned, uh, snakes, including pythons and boa constrictors, um, which are now being housed in the facility. So, um, the complexity of the cases that we are receiving has absolutely changed over the years, which has required more complex series of responses for our officers. Can you give any explanation as why we have more complex cases than we had a few years ago i mean has something changed did covid drive this covid blowing everything on covid i

[03:46:12] mean yeah you do i don't think in terms of what our officers are seeing that it's necessarily covid related i think to a degree it is a greater awareness of what animal services does and is capable of we receive far more involved tips and people calling us who have interest in what we do i think that overall we've developed a better trust in our community so that they understand They're able to call us with questions and concerns of animal welfare.

[03:46:38] Why do you think you need three as opposed to one or two? It's a big request year over year. Yes, we're asking for two humane law enforcement officers. Oh, I'm sorry. That's your third priority. I was looking at it. Yeah. All right, two versus one. There you go. Yes. Our officers are divided into two teams, east and west, and so to have an additional officer on each team would allow the workload to be distributed appropriately.

[03:46:59] If we only had one officer, it actually wouldn't, it would not have as dramatic an offset in the reduction in on-call or other responses because the amount of time they'd have to spend commuting from east to west and rotating between the teams would essentially nullify the ask but you have 11 now so you'd have an even number if you just added one uh well one is the chief he's like oh all right thanks i'll listen to what everyone else has to say okay mr crony thank you chair randall and thank you nina for what you do in your department um so it looks like you

[03:47:36] have had 42 staff for a long time, right? It looks like you haven't increased in staffing for a few years. That's correct. We had staff attached to the new facility, but we have not requested any staff. In the eight years I've been in the Department of Animal Services, I've only requested three staff. Wow. Okay. I'll be supporting every request. Thank you. One question I have is, With the addition of a veterinarian into vet tax, do you think you could offer like a spay and neuter clinic for income eligible residents?

[03:48:13] Because I know that it's expensive and that's, you know, it is a big service to the community. So I'm just wondering if that could be an offering when you have additional resources. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. We are very enthusiastic with trying to figure out ways to better support our community.

[03:48:28] We had previously had public vaccination clinics that were offered off-site around the county. Those had to be cut back because the volume of work in the shelter became so substantial for our veterinarian. So we have a vaccine clinic at the shelter once a month, but we don't have the availability of the veterinary staff to be able to do more than that.

[03:48:46] Low-cost spay-neuter is a tremendous offering that we would love to expand and offer to our community. So it's very feasible that with this additional team that that's something we could incorporate into our offerings. Thank you very much. Yes. Mr. Turner. Thank you. First of all, did you say two animal sexual assault cases?

[03:49:04] Yes, sir. You know, I don't want to know. All right. Me neither. So I sometimes read these narratives and find myself sort of disagreeing with their priorities, like where they are. So in this case, I really would have thought the two humane law enforcement officers would have been a higher priority than the customer service specialists.

[03:49:24] So I think you're going to have to sell me on the customer service specialists a little bit. And I'll say, I think to some extent for me, you're a little bit of a victim of your own success because it's such an incredibly well-run operation. So thank you. But you have a 99% customer satisfaction rate.

[03:49:41] So it's kind of hard for me to say, oh, my God, we got to add a person because, you know, on weekends, we may have an hour wait. That doesn't sound too dramatic, especially compared to what I think is a pretty well-established need for the humane law enforcement officers based on what you said.

[03:49:59] So help me out on this. Absolutely. So essentially the reason for our prioritization is the customer service specialist and our veterinary team impact the community that we serve very directly in terms of the number of people that we are interacting with, the number of animals we are able to serve, the wait times for our customers.

[03:50:18] The officers, the greatest impact to the officers not being adequately staffed is to the officers themselves. So while it pains me to put my officers at a lower priority than my public-facing staff, because I love my officers, I recognize that our purpose here is to serve the public.

[03:50:34] Well, yeah, but, I mean, there are a lot of these complaints that come in or citizens that are calling with those complaints, and don't they have to wait longer when there's not an officer coming? But I'm less about trying to argue about the prioritization and more, I'm not really sold on the customer service specialist. So is that truly impacting the actual volume that we're able to do?

[03:50:55] I mean, are there pets that are not getting adopted because we lack this position, Or is it just that you have to wait a little bit? I don't think it's necessarily adoption rates that are being impacted. I think that our return-to-owner rates are one of the more challenging statistics for us to be able to keep up with. Return-to-owner is what happens when a stray animal is picked up, comes into the animal shelter, and we try to find their families.

[03:51:16] That can be extremely time-consuming. Not everybody knows to call the animal shelter to find their lost pet, or they think that their lost pet is going to come home to them, particularly with cats. So our customer service staff has to do a fair amount of research to get those animals back. Secondarily, I can say with confidence that we are not adequately serving our population who comes into the shelter and does not speak English as their first language.

[03:51:39] The shelter is very loud. It is very exciting. There is a lot of children very frequently, and that's part of the design. You know, the design was that essentially it feels like a children's museum. You want people to come in. You want people to interact with us. But as a result, if these people are not being greeted, they are going into the kennels, and they are opening them up.

[03:51:56] They are letting the animals out of their cages. They are putting their fingers in. They are getting scratched. So our customer service staff does more than just do adoptions. They engage with our community in a meaningful way and allow them to have a positive experience. And those survey results are only for people who actually complete adoptions.

[03:52:14] Oh, okay. Ms. Brooksman. Thank you. So reading this, it seems to me like the customer service specialist probably should be bilingual.

[03:52:31] Are you going to be looking for that? It is absolutely preferred, yes. We would love to have someone bilingual. Okay, great. This is a little out of the scope, so you can answer this question later. But my office, I think you know my office, has been working with General Assembly Member Boisco on the vet tech bill.

[03:52:52] And first of all, have you had trouble keeping vet techs because they can't do some of the technical stuff that they would like to do? There's a tremendous shortage of both veterinarians and veterinary technicians. there's a study being put forth or that has been proposed. I'm not sure if it went and got passed today or not, but to really evaluate the veterinary shortage in Virginia.

[03:53:13] But yes, I would say that we have a very difficult time finding veterinary technicians at all. And the limited abilities that they have due to the legislation is certainly complex in the shelter environment. Okay. So that's the feedback I got from vets in my district.

[03:53:29] So that's why we started working on the bill because they felt as if they were losing vet techs to other states where they could do they had they were allowed to acquire more skills and do more stuff and then get paid more um so um so you did are you telling me maybe and i can well you can tell me this later but um if you don't know offhand are you saying that the boysco's bill turned into a study or i believe those are two separate they're two separate separate elements okay do you know what happened to the vet tech bill i do not i do I do know that the bill passed today that allows animal shelters to provide additional services at rabies vaccination clinics.

[03:54:08] So previously it had been limited to just offering rabies vaccines and potentially microchips at off-site clinics. They've now expanded that to be other wellness services. So that's a really great win for our community. Oh, that's great. All right, we'll check in with Senator Boyce's office. And if you know, send me an email.

[03:54:23] Thanks. Absolutely. I have nothing but to say thank you. I'm so surprised you guys haven't added these positions since 2000. or 2019. That's a really, really long time. I actually think that the moving of the shelter itself made people just more aware of you. And that, so I think the awareness of reporting things and the more severity is just because it's getting reported more because people know where you are and how to reach you versus when you're in Waterford, you're kind of tucked away and no one normally knew that so I think I honestly don't think it was COVID so so are there

[03:55:02] any so anyway thank you you guys do a magnificent job all the time are there motions on the day yes Mr. Kirsten you have a motion yes Madam Chair whether I'll get a second I don't know or not but I'm going to move to remove one of the humane law enforcement officer positions from this year's budget going twice I think that would die for lack of a second i guess i don't get to talk about it okay all right you did great thank you so much thank you

[03:55:32] all right next we're going to the um community corrections mr sullivan i need you to um let everybody know that that day i told you to go compliment the the one of your that there was a real person and i wasn't losing my mind that day right because you guys just kept looking at me like i don't think we need to talk about that i'm perfectly fine with letting sleeping dogs I see. People just think it was me, huh? That's our secret. That's just between you and I.

[03:56:11] Okay. Community Corrections is, let's see, where is it? Where are we at? Oh, R46 to R48 under description of resource request. And the budget narrative is 2 through 18. Well, good evening, Chair Randall. Good evening.

[03:56:29] and members of the board I'm chip Sullivan director of community Corrections and I'm joined at the table by April Higgs our deputy director and Jacqueline Johnson or financial analyst Chad Earhart and Elizabeth Bowen are seated behind me they are the pretrial and probation I am I really am it is our pleasure to present the department's FY 25 resource requests which begin on page R46 of the proposed budget book. Our first priority is for a mental health probation officer to supervise juvenile and domestic relations court cases. This

[03:57:07] position is designed to reduce incarceration rates for those living with mental health issues. Our second request is for a senior pretrial investigator which addresses workload concerns within that division and will enhance our services to the courts which rely on the department's evaluations during bond hearings. Our final request is for a DWI probation officer. While these caseloads remain amongst the highest in community corrections, the supervision of these offenders has become increasingly more complex as these cases are presenting with mental health issues

[03:57:43] or use of harder drugs like opiates. We believe these positions will meet the needs of those on our caseloads while alleviating workload concerns, thereby promoting public safety and better outcomes for our clientele.

[03:57:59] We'd like to thank the board for the support of our department, and with that, we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Supervisor, if you have questions, put your lights on. Mr. Letourneau. So how many, what's the caseloads like for the probation officers in general?

[03:58:18] It says the recommendation is supposed to be 60 per officer. They're pretty close to 60. They're right at 60, and I would note that because our DWI case loads are much higher that some of the officers are getting those overflow cases, which is also increasing their case load.

[03:58:40] Okay, the mental health docket, so it says priority one is a mental health probation officer, but the mental health docket only has 10 participants with a capacity of 25. So what do you think is going on there? Well, I would note first that the mental health docket, docket is in general district court.

[03:59:01] That's a totally different court. And I would add that most folks with mental health concerns aren't on the mental health docket. In fact, the mental health docket supervises, I believe, 36 total cases.

[03:59:19] So this position is... Oh, I misread it. It's the second, third bullet. It says not for the mental health docket. You have one assigned to that in the other court. So this is for everything else? Well, so this position is designed to serve juvenile and domestic relations mental health cases.

[03:59:40] And that caseload is significant? Yes. And I would add that those cases there involve family violence. It's typically involving an adult child and a parent.

[03:59:57] The adult child is living in the house and has been dealing with mental health. And there's an episode of family violence. So this probation officer would get assigned a case when there's a mental health concern with the case, basically? Yes.

[04:00:13] Okay. And then you'd have other probation officers handle cases where that's not a concern? Correct. But you want a dedicated person for those cases? Yes, correct. Okay. I understand. The DWI position, so when's the last time we added a DWI probation officer, do you know?

[04:00:33] And has the caseload gone up since that time? I feel like maybe 2021 was when we added one.

[04:00:50] I'm not 100% sure on that. Do you have that? 2022, you're too sure. I don't have that offhand as far as when the last time.

[04:01:15] It's been a while, though? Yes. And cases are absolutely are to current DWI officers have about 80, 80 cases per officer. And we would we would definitely like to have them around 60, hopefully a little bit lower, because one thing that I would add about these cases is is they're presenting with more mental health concerns.

[04:01:42] We're seeing use of harder drugs, heroin, fentanyl and meth. Okay. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[04:01:58] Thank you for being here. You guys do great work all the time. Thank you. I appreciate the fairly modest request. Do you remember how many you requested last year? Last year, there was one.

[04:02:15] Even better last year. Spanish-speaking domestic violence PO and then an administrative assistant that was FTE authority. Okay, yeah. And you're requesting, obviously, three this year. What are the total number of employees in the department?

[04:02:33] 42. They're 42? Okay. So I have a question specifically on the DUI case or the position. I would assume, because obviously I'm pretty familiar with how someone gets processed through this, these are individuals with higher blood alcohols because normally they flow through the Alcohol Safety Action Program if they don't otherwise.

[04:03:00] And I would assume that is largely in the last few years where the judges have required the more enhanced probation. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Do you have any sense of how much this has grown since, I think, probably the last administration of the Commonwealth Attorney's Office started?

[04:03:20] I can tell you, when we met with the county administrator November 1st to talk about budget, there were 111 cases on enhanced supervision. As of last week, there were 210.

[04:03:37] Okay. So it has continued to grow. I would note, though, just for the record, and I've went back four or five years, DUIs and DWIs consistently comprise, I would say, 20 to 25 percent of the probation caseload.

[04:04:00] When we were cleaning out our offices to move into the courthouse, April found this old bar chart of offenses, I think, from 2014, and it was the same thing.

[04:04:16] DUIs were the most common charge on our caseload. Okay. All right. Those, I think, are all the other questions I have. Thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. The last two years, as I recall, you were facing issues with increasingly complex cases that you were having to monitor.

[04:04:42] This year, the problem seems to have shifted. Am I perceiving this correctly, or do you anticipate still having to monitor individuals who have been released and are a threat to the public?

[04:04:59] I would say that I would still anticipate that we are going to have these cases because there's always going to be, you know, and I think part of our job is you really can't always tell if somebody's violent also, but that's how I would answer that.

[04:05:32] It's still, it's very early. It is. So I feel like we were, you know, trying to be modest with what we were asking to kind of see what the, you know, trends are going to be moving forward.

[04:05:49] I know that some of the comparisons you're making in your budget requests go back, you're looking at a range of years going back potentially to 2017. Have you been seeing a steady increase in mental illness cases as well as drunk driving, drunk in public cases?

[04:06:17] Yes. All right. Okay. And so that's been a steady increase. Absolutely. And, you know, I would add that especially about this position, it's a JNDR position.

[04:06:33] And you're looking at family violence. You know, and it's typically, you know, an adult child who's living in the home with their parent. The child has been struggling with a mental health disorder, and there's an episode of family violence. Those are very, very high-risk situations, and this, you know, this position requires specialized skills that not every officer has.

[04:07:03] Thank you very much. You're welcome. Ms. Umstuck. I'm sorry. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to support your requests. As you might have seen earlier this evening, we had the new Commonwealth's attorney come and talk about how they're going to be going to trials a lot more.

[04:07:27] Sounds like a lot more prosecutions are going to be happening. Has that impacted your office yet? Well, I think it's still very early. But I would add that I think, you know, at least in FY23, 92% of the court's total workload was in general district in J&DR courts.

[04:07:50] And that's whom we serve primarily. Got it. So I would expect with more cases, more convictions that our workload would actually be going up.

[04:08:07] Okay. Will you keep us posted if it's drastic? Absolutely. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So I think to Ms. Amstead's question, the thing is none of these things are in a silo, right? So, you know, a lot of times how somebody exits the system, it very much determines what happens next.

[04:08:32] And so that's why I was asking the sheriff about services while still in incarcerated settings. When you give people services while they are incarcerated and they come out with new skills, a job, clothing, a home, those type of things, they are much less likely to offend.

[04:08:51] And so it's actually a savings of not just money but families and all those things to put money into people on the front side often. There's also all these studies about, you know, people offend faster, re-offend faster in the winter for obvious reasons.

[04:09:13] And so, so much of what we do with someone when they are incarcerated, especially the six months before they're going to get out, will determine what happens when they get out and how much harm that will be to the community, to themselves, to their families, And how much just flat money we're going to spend because it's always going to cost more money to incarcerate someone than to treat someone.

[04:09:38] So we are penny wise and pound foolish when we do not want to spend money in the while people are incarcerated. That's actually the best time to spend the money. They're there. They're there anyway. You know, I don't I'm not really convinced that we have a whole lot more mental health cases than we've ever had before.

[04:09:57] I think it's more that thankfully we're losing some of the stigma around it, so we're talking about it more. I do think in a different way that some might talk about it, that COVID did cause issues, but not because some of it was isolation, true.

[04:10:13] But also, this country lost over a million people, which actually causes trauma. You know, there's something called collective trauma. So some 12-year-old sees his grandmother and then never sees her again. You know, that's traumatizing. and that will cause some of these issues.

[04:10:30] And so one in five people will deal with mental health issues in their lifetime. The number hasn't gone up or down. It's the same number. We just see it more. So I said all that to say what you all do is so important because you see people when they are at the toughest point sometimes and when it's the hardest for them and when you know that just a little bit more effort might actually keep them from going back into the jail again.

[04:10:59] So let's keep focusing on prevention. Let's keep focusing on treatment. Let's keep focusing on encouragement. And if these positions would do that, then I'm more than happy to support them because in the end they're going to save money. Thank you. Thank you. I would add that Jacqueline Johnston found that the last time we added a resource to the DWI team was in 2018.

[04:11:24] I would also encourage you to stop saying like those stronger drugs if DWI is the thing you're seeing the most. That's a pretty strong drug. Right? That's a pretty strong drug. So, all right. Anyone have any emotions? Good job and thank you.

[04:11:41] And when is the barbecue? So, I would. I've had it. I've had it. No, no, hold on. Because I was here and I promised that we would have a barbecue. And we actually did have it. And I want to say it was July maybe.

[04:11:58] It was unfortunately during the height of the Canadian wildfires. So I just didn't smell it because the fires were doing it? And we had to take it inside. Listen, listen, listen. These are not good reasons, and I'm going to need to have this barbecue pretty quickly here.

[04:12:17] Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, supervisors, we're going to go on to the Juvenile Court Services Unit. Mr. Holland, will you come to the table, please? Juvenile Court Services is page R55 under the description of resource requests and the budget narrative.

[04:12:37] Whoa, the budget narrative is 2 through 36. I'm sorry, it's R35 under description of resource requests. Budget narrative is 2 through 36. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall, board.

[04:13:00] Again, yes, you can find our requests on R-55, proposed budget document this request is a conversion of a part-time administrative assistant position into a full-time position for the youth and family resource center as you as you may know the youth services center is a new facility that opened in april 2023 the facility is home to the juvenile detention center the youth shelter and the youth and family resource center the resource center as it's affectionately called aims to link youth and families to sustainable resources in the community to prevent delinquency to date we have seen over

[04:13:36] 170 youth and their caregivers in the resource center where they have met with jcsu staff completed evidence-based screenings and been connected to services that include counseling gang prevention parenting classes substance abuse treatment recreational activities and other pro-social activities 94 of the families we have served follow through with recommended services wow we have hosted over 200 people at the family workshops groups and special events at the resource centers. Topics include human trafficking, I'm sorry, human trafficking prevention, fentanyl trends, vaping, tips for parenting, teens, and healthy relationships.

[04:14:17] We leverage local partners to provide these resources to the community. While we are actively engaging with these activities and interventions, the administrative assistant who staffs the resource center is only a 20-hour per week employee. We are requesting that this position be converted to a full-time employee to allow us to expand our hours of operation, and we're quickly respond to requests for appointments and better support data entry and connections to services.

[04:14:42] With me are Laura Colt-Aden, the assistant director, and Michelle Smith, the superintendent of the JDC. And with that, we'll take any questions that you may have. Wonderful, wonderful. Questions from anybody? Mr. Kirsner. Just briefly. First of all, I want to thank you for all the good and hard work you do. I know it's not always easy dealing with juveniles.

[04:15:00] I've got six of them in my house, so I completely understand that. And they're all boys, even harder. The question is, how many employees do you have within the department? In the total department? I think we're at 81. Is that right? You're a little bigger than CCP.

[04:15:15] Remember, we're combined. We're both state and county with that number. Fair enough. Fair enough. 82. I stand corrected. Okay. Okay. That's all. Thank you. I just wanted to know that. I'm trying to keep track of this, get a little better idea, because we don't want to get to see you guys. You know, we know the sheriff's department and the fire department is pretty big.

[04:15:34] We see them on a regular basis, but you guys don't wear uniforms and don't drive around in really nice, cool cars and trucks. So thanks. Right, and if you don't hear from us, that usually means we're doing a pretty good job. Right, yeah, or your juveniles, right. There we go, there we go. So my only question is, has there been any thought to try to regain the status of having Haida therapists in your department?

[04:15:56] Hasn't been something that we've looked at. We're trying to partner with other county-located partners, but nothing specific to that. So that hasn't been something that DJJ or Department of Juvenile Justice has proposed at all. They have such good stats and such good numbers and such good outcomes.

[04:16:14] One of the things that the Hyder therapist did over in Prince William County was with the gang activity, he got soccer teams together, put the young people who were in different gangs on different soccer teams. So all the gangs were mixed up in all the soccer teams, and then they played soccer games.

[04:16:31] And the gang activity failed because now they had to work together in soccer. And so it was a really interesting experiment, and it worked well. And Haida paid for uniforms, got them time on field and that type of thing.

[04:16:47] So it was just – they're doing some, I think, really unique things over in Haida. So I just didn't – We do maintain a Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force. We do a soccer tournament with all of our neighboring counties up here, and that's all based in those counties.

[04:17:03] Yeah, I've seen that too. I've seen that too. Well, if you're ever interested in restarting that, you know, it is a very heavy lift to keep those stats, right? They do require evidence-based stats given all the time, but I think it's worthwhile, actually.

[04:17:18] So, anyway, you're doing a great job. We appreciate you. Thank you. Are there any motions? I think you're good. Thank you very much. Have a good evening. Okay, we're down to the last two. Library services.

[04:17:33] Library services is found in the description of resource requests on page R71 and R72. And the budget narrative page is 4-2. Good evening.

[04:17:57] Good evening. We're ready when you are. Good evening, Chair Randall and the rest of the Board of Supervisors.

[04:18:13] My name is Chang Liu. I'm the director of the library system. And with me this evening on my left is Mike Van Kampen, the deputy director. And then Nan Peik, our budget and finance manager, and then Pete O'Brien, the communications division manager.

[04:18:29] Thank you for your continued support to the library system. And this year, the Library Board of Trustees, as usual, went through a very deliberative process. They have a Board of Trustees budget committee working with the senior managers and me submitted three resource requests to the county administrator, Mr. Tim Hemstreet, and two of them are included in the proposed budget.

[04:18:59] And the third one, due to budgetary constraints, is not included, and we understand that. So as you said, the first resource request is Communications Specialist 3 on page R71, and the second one is for the HR technician on page R72.

[04:19:21] So we are ready to answer any questions you might have. That was quick. Do we have any questions? Ms. Letourneau. Yeah, this is another one where I felt like the HR technician seemed a lot more important to me.

[04:19:37] I could understand just the amount of, you have 336 employees, and you only have one HR manager, so no issue there. I am having trouble on the communication specialist, and again, it's sort of a victim of your own success metric, because if there's been a 141% rise in program attendance, then clearly the public seems to know what's going on at the libraries, and certainly i've seen incredibly great communication constantly coming which is a

[04:20:08] credit to the staff but i'm having trouble kind of justifying the position this year i um i agree with you both priorities are very important the communications position we have submitted a resource request for at least three years but unfortunately was always the third category's third priority so um and this year we really wanted to put as a first priority because we've been requesting it for so many years and pete could provide more information about why we need

[04:20:44] an additional position to our small division of communications three positions right now including pete so pete hi supervisor um thank you for your question i think it's a little bit uh what you're seeing is a touch of a apples to orange situation. If you compared visits year-to-date this year to FY 20 right before the pandemic, visits are still down 15.7%. For FY 23, it was down 22% for the whole year, so we're still regaining our physical audience. As a result of the pandemic, we saw a huge

[04:21:19] increase in our online audience. People were seeking, you know, books, movies, music online as well as online language learning, job training, coaching. So we're serving more people. The need for outreach is growing to our underserved communities. For instance, last year we created over 11,600 unique pieces of marketing collateral. That's a lot. The good news is they're all ADA compliant now, which hadn't happened in years before. The demand that I cannot answer right now from staff is for our materials and additional languages. We do our best to deliver

[04:21:58] Spanish as much as we can, but the need for Arabic and Farsi continues to come up, and I'm not able to supply those, and every time we do it, so if we were to lay something out, we spend our time, we get the English layout. Obviously, doing two, three, and four isn't three more times of work, but it's about 50 percent because every language is going to be a different length. The lines are going to cut so it does require additional design time so it's an extra you know 40 to 50 percent punishment just to do uh additional languages and that's a significant need in the community

[04:22:29] thank you mr turner thank you madam chair i'd like to follow up on that just a little bit and see if i can restate what she said and understand it so uh i was with the supervisor letourneau my understanding was a communication specialist was intended to draw more to the library system What you're saying is, no, we've been very successful drawing more to the library system, but there are various media in the communications field to properly serve the draw to the library system with communications products.

[04:23:08] And that's where you're overwhelmed because you're not able to provide the products that that larger audience needs. Am I saying that correct? Yes, I think it's a lot of different things. I've always referred to it as death by a thousand cuts, so that's a part of it, but there's additional strain on just as the world has evolved, you know, where a common person might, oh, I made a Facebook post or a tweet or something like that.

[04:23:34] From a personal account, it seems simple, but when you're working the business suite on the back end, it's a lot more cumbersome. We manage 13 social media accounts on a daily basis, just AI spam bots in the last year trying to rip our customers off through links through nefarious websites. That's a huge tax on our time.

[04:23:51] So there's an array of issues that we need in addition to new outreach. But I would love to, you know, really talking about maintaining service levels, I would love just to get back to 2019 where I could do some advertising. I used to be able to occasionally do with my budget, reach out to the Spanish-speaking community through targeted advertising and specific zip codes through Pandora and Spotify, whether it was mailers through the treasurer's office or even a television commercial.

[04:24:18] I don't have the bandwidth to have those conversations and record those shoots and shoot those commercials anymore, and I'd love to get back to that. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Does anyone have any motions on the dais?

[04:24:35] Mr. Letourneau. Yeah, I am going to move to remove the Communication Specialist III position for 139-290. I'll second it. Motion is made and seconded. Mr. Turner, would you like to open the question? Yeah, it's not, I mean, I love the libraries. I really do.

[04:24:50] And everything you just said is 100% right. It's just when I'm trying to compare what happens if we don't fund this position versus some of the other departments we had tonight, some of the other positions we had tonight, the implication is just not as significant. And it's not a public safety issue.

[04:25:07] It's not a critical issue. If this motion is successful, which it probably won't be, I would potentially look at putting it back in at the end. But I'm trying to be intentional. And again, I'm trying to get the tax rate down a little bit. So I have to find some places to do that, even though it's painful.

[04:25:27] Right. Anybody else? Mr. LeTorno made the motion. Made the motion. Mr. Kirshner seconded the motion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? i think that was 4-4 i think if you if you said i please raise your hand if you said nay please raise your hand that's 4-4 means the motion fails on a 4-4 vote motion fails now having said that mr sains is not here so he could bring no seriously mr sains could not hear so he can bring it back and there was no prevailing side of the motion because it was a 4-4 motion so

[04:26:07] that that this motion could possibly come back so i'm just letting you all know that and right now nothing comes out your budget letting you all know that that could come back that's all okay all right thank you thank you very much all right and last but most certainly not least mr torpey come on down okay i'm getting tired hello sir all right parks and recs is on description of resource request is on pages

[04:26:45] R-73 through R-78, Budget Narrative 4-8.

[04:27:03] Terpi, it's wonderful seeing you. Good to see you. You're ready when you are. All right. Well, good evening, Chair Randall and board members. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you the needs for PRCS in the upcoming FY25 budget year. Just a quick recap. Last year was very successful for PRCS with the department being recognized nationally and on the state level for Howland, Bernie Hanson Regional Park, as well as our summer Our camp program, Claude Moore Recreation and Community Center, and the Franklin Park Arts Center and Pool were all selected by the community as their favorite programs and facilities.

[04:27:37] As well as several of our staff, we're invited to share with the many things that are happening here within PRCS, both at the state and national level within our industry. We continue the implementation of our strategic plan, which includes four major themes of exceptional experiences for all, stewardship of departmental resources, optimization of our operations, as well as comprehensive team development. Last year, if you recall, we had a very minimal request, knowing that in FY25, our request would be large due to the capital facilities that would be opening, and that is primarily what is found

[04:28:14] in our request this year. Our enhancements include the operational and support positions to open fully the ashburn recreation and community center the staffing needs for the added fields out at bowland park as a part of the dc united partnership we've got an fte authority only request because the lodge at hansen park has been so successful we need another position down there for that and then once again we're asking for an inclusion staff and some part-time staff to deal with the ever-growing inclusion needs across all of our programs.

[04:28:52] And if you remember, this was the one position last year that we asked for that was not funded. We also are asking for the continuation of what we discussed last year with the Aging Program Specialist, another one in the Area Agency on Aging, to help eliminate that 173% increase that we saw in three previous years.

[04:29:14] And then finally, an internal HR trainer, which is specifically or primarily geared towards the nearly 1,300 part-time or temporary staff that we have and the training that's necessary to bring them up to speed and get them ready for those frontline services that they provide across the county.

[04:29:36] I continue to be honored to serve as a director of Parks, Recreation, and Community Service, And I'm very fortunate to work with exceptional people that I'm surrounded with every day, including those that are here with me this evening, Jeremy Payne, Deputy Director, Janet Tape, who is our Division Manager for Operations and Budget, as well as Assistant Directors Myla Neal, Tommy Kiriton, and Jenny Jones.

[04:30:03] And at this time, Madam Chair, we would be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much, Mr. Torpy, for everything. Supervisors, if you have questions, put your lights on, please. Mr. Letourneau. So on the inclusion specialists or the after-school programs, so the after-school programs are generally revenue offset.

[04:30:26] Is there no way to sort of count any, do we get any additional capacity out of this, or is it purely within only the existing population? Well, it's not, this request also is not, and I'm sorry if that wasn't clear, is not specific only to CASA.

[04:30:44] We had one inclusion position several years ago, and we felt at that time that that was going to help us not only in CASA but also across the department. And the amount of inclusion requests were just so large in CASA that that never was able to go out.

[04:31:02] So this one would help expand out to some of the other programs in the community centers and summer camps, as well as assisting with some of those after-school programs that were not able to be handled. And just so I understand the request, so there's only one programmer here, and then 300 hours a week of an assistant?

[04:31:25] So it's... Spread out amongst... Yeah, it's hours that would be used throughout the department for AIDS. personnel though no no it's part-time it'd be part-time you're bringing in part-time that's correct so yeah because we have like ft positions one pt position zero yeah but there are pt positions here there are hours that would be used for those temporary positions where are the where are the positions coming from then so they're not here explain the pool position how we did that so we so we do get this question quite a bit okay i got one more question on the other thing too so be

[04:32:03] quick. I was going to say temporary positions are typically, they're not like regular positions, so they're not headcount. They're just funding that is used to hire the positions and program. So what do we mean by the PT position column in here? So that would be a part-time regular position. That's not a temporary position. That's correct. These are temporary positions. That is correct. Well, why are we doing them as temporary positions if we intend it to be permanent?

[04:32:25] The nature of the positions is they work a few hours a week. Temporary employees. So the position isn't so much temporary as the employee might be. That's correct, the nature of the employment. Okay. HR trainer, I do feel like we've added some HR capacity within the department.

[04:32:44] This is another one where I'm kind of like, if we don't fund this, I'm not necessarily seeing a huge implication. So we have added HR positions, but those have been primarily in the onboarding, the hiring process for the volume that we have.

[04:33:03] One of the things, though, that we have seen is, particularly with those temporary positions, the facility supervisors, the lifeguards, those ones that are dealing with the public front line, there was not necessarily the appropriate training that we felt needed to be there in order to get them ready for those interactions with the public.

[04:33:23] And this position, we've been trying to do it internally, but as the enhancement talks about, we can only get so much absorbed within our department. Okay, Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[04:33:39] I was looking at, first, thank you for the presentation. This is looking at the after-school programs, inclusion program, and adaptive rec assistant hours. So is this going to be particularly in one CASA location, or will it be in multiple locations?

[04:34:02] How does that work? No, it's across our entire department. So the full-time position would do the assessments that come in, wherever that is, and then some of the aides would be positions that we would send out to assist. Okay.

[04:34:18] Oh, actually, that sounds fantastic. Oh, yeah, true. So, and this is geared toward our students with disabilities? It's, yeah, we do assessments, and some of them are for inclusion services where they are trying to mainstream or if there is behavior issues that we are seeing and sometimes even they have not had an assessment done we can go out and help them with the assessment to see one whether or not we can still keep them in

[04:34:53] our program and if so how can we do that okay thank you mr. Crony thank you chair Randall and thank you Steve I want to thank you for putting in an extra a person at the lodge, and I tried to take pictures in there and you guys were going gangbusters. I couldn't even get in there for a photo.

[04:35:17] It's a very popular place. You're doing great work there. It's really busy and very popular. Thank you. Maybe what would help is what's the salary for the one after-school inclusion programmer? Can we split it out versus the hours, the part-time hours?

[04:35:43] Supervisor Tacroni, so for the full-time position, the cost associated to that is $115,370. Okay, and then the rest is all that part-time position?

[04:36:03] That is correct. The hours. Okay. Okay, thank you. And then how many HR liaisons do you have in the department? Jan, do you know, total number is nine, and that includes ER specialists, employee relations specialists, recruiter, and then folks that help with hiring.

[04:36:29] Okay, but none of them do training? No, we do have some training. That's how we've been trying to do that internally and absorb that internally. It's just not, we don't have the staff to do the level of training that we need.

[04:36:46] Okay. So going back to the after school programs inclusion, could you go to 150 hours versus 300? Could we do half? Is that possible for that service?

[04:37:05] If I could answer that. Yeah, go ahead. So the answer is, of course, right? But this is one of the departments and one of the county's significant equity efforts. I think the best way to look at this is there's a chart on R-76 that looks at the jump in support that we can provide between FY24 and FY25 with assisting with inquiries and requests for dealing with those in our community who just need a little bit more support.

[04:37:39] to be able to participate in activities in PRCS just like everybody else does. The challenge is that they need a little more support. And so we could, of course, you could have the hours be zero. You could have the hours be 150 hours.

[04:37:56] We're trying to get to the 300-hour level because it allows us to meet the demand that we just can't meet, which means children get turned away because we don't have the ability to address the request for assistance that we have out there. Okay. And I was just going to add, for adaptive recreation, in FY22, there was 230 forms requested for inclusion support.

[04:38:21] By FY23, that was up to 332. Oh, wow. Okay, thank you. Ms. Bricksman, Ms. Gillespie, do you want to turn your light off, please? Oh, sorry. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you. Supervisor Letourneau and Supervisor Tacroni dug into this a little bit already.

[04:38:42] I did light on 587,000 for that position, and then I saw 300 hours per week. I guess I would – it's confusing to me why, if we know we have 300 hours per week, why couldn't we hire someone part-time or even full-time so that they could get benefits and those sorts of things?

[04:39:03] That's a very good question. The answer that I would say, or the primary answer, is that we never know when these requests are going to be coming in from different and and the degree of what it's going to be so there's times where it may be one-on-one that we have to have and then there's time where we can just and add another person to the overall ratio of a site and meet that depending upon that so it gives us the flexibility and that's in talking with the adaptive recreation staff that was the best option to try and meet all those requests and so do we kind of have qualified people waiting in the wings for a phone call like

[04:39:39] substitute teacher is that how it works so we have we have subs we have camp subs we have casa subs after school specialists and then these folks would have an additional level of training to deal with those folks that have the the special needs okay all right um i'm happy to support your resource requests um i can't wait for ashburn to open because i have been assured that that will alleviate some of the pressure on clob more um but uh you know clob more it's probably about 20

[04:40:14] years old it opened in 2007 uh-huh uh getting there um have we decided when we're going to start looking at renovating recreation centers not to my knowledge they're also still new yeah exactly okay now the lodge at hallen and hansen park yeah correct um is that a revenue neutral It is.

[04:40:40] It's not revenue positive. It's just, well, the request is for an FTE authority, so it's the revenue that we would ping in would cover the cost of that. Cover the cost. Okay, great. And how many people can the lodge accommodate? Depending upon the type of event, most are, it's like 250.

[04:41:01] Oh, so it's pretty big. It is big. Okay, probably needs a good amount of parking. It has a good amount of parking, yes. Okay, okay. I'm thinking about the Askegrins property and that nice barn. That's all. Anyway, we'll have conversations about that later, but I'm happy to support your request.

[04:41:16] Thank you. - Thank you. - Mr. Tarpy, I say this all the time. I think your department is absolutely phenomenal. You're the only department in Loudoun County that serves every age from three to 103. It really is the host band.

[04:41:32] You all do just fantastic. And I joke that you must have a twin brother because you are everywhere all the time. I know that 'cause I'm a lot of places And every time I get there, there you are. So I'm not only going to support your request, I'm going to thank you all for all you do and all you have done.

[04:41:53] Recently, when I was at NACO, and I think I sent you this information. If I didn't, I'll send it to you electronically. There's a lot of talk and a lot of new information about caregivers of the aging population population and the fact that caregivers are often the age of the person they're caring for maybe a couple of years younger them too often a spouse and that because they're offering care they're not taking care of themselves very well and taking care of the medicine and getting their medicine and things like that and caregivers will often die before the person they're caring for which then leaves that person with no one creating even more issues so I see

[04:42:31] that you have this aging program specialist and you do mention the position would be the first point of contact for older adults or caregivers. Do you have anything in your programs that focuses solely on caregivers and not the person they're caring for, but just solely caregivers? Because the new research is pretty dire, to be honest. Yeah, and we do do programs for caregiver support and we do have some of those that happen at our senior centers which is one of the places where

[04:43:07] there is a lot of discussion surrounding caregiving but the elder resources program does do that but we certainly if you give me respite care for caregivers we don't do we we have we have three uh respite facilities and actually our fourth one is in the dullest south in the in the cip that's working through facilities for caregivers oh no not for caregivers for for For people who are caregiving and perhaps are still working, their loved ones can come during the day and be at a licensed facility all day long.

[04:43:40] Okay, but that's the same thing. That's giving the caregiver respite because you're caring for the loved one. That's correct. Okay, so you're giving them your, okay. And I think the CASA or the after-school program inclusion, if you read it well, if anyone reads it, it's actually about ADA requirements.

[04:43:58] So the inclusion we're talking about is making sure the kids with differing abilities, differing physical abilities, can take part in our CASA programs and our programs, because sometimes they can't always do that. So I think that's really very important that we make sure that all our kids can take part in these programs.

[04:44:14] So I think your department does a great job at taking this out of time. Please go thank all of your employees. I will not be making any motions or supporting any motions to take things out, and I appreciate you. Thank you very much. I appreciate my staff. Are there any motions on the dais? seeing them. I think you're going home.

[04:44:32] Thank you very much. I think you all are too. Amen. All right, supervisors, before we leave our next meeting is well, we have a meeting tomorrow. We have a meeting tomorrow. Chair Randall. The LCPS budget. Okay, I forgot about that. Give me a sec.

[04:44:49] We have a meeting tomorrow and then our next budget work sets is Thursday? Thursday? Okay, well let's do the LCPS budget piece right now. Which is, do you guys see the package? LCPS? What's Staff is looking for, are there any additional questions that the board has to be transmitted to LCPS ahead of their next work session?

[04:45:15] I want to get people through first. If you look at the packages, first thing. Yeah, the only concern we have is work sessions go through next week. And so we want to be able to get LCPS questions sent to LCPS with enough time for them to answer the questions and be able to respond to the board.

[04:45:36] If you look at your package, it says county budget questions, and it says LCPS budget questions. I didn't know what that meant. Well, same thing as county budget questions. I just moved it down because I wanted us to get through the departments. But if you have any LCPS budget questions that staff can answer or send on, this is the time to ask those.

[04:46:00] No? Okay. Well, I'll be going back to where our next meeting will be Thursday after tomorrow. All right. Thank you, everybody. We are adjourned.

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